Highest Paying Tech Companies of 2019
levels.fyiIf you're a software engineer in a city where these companies employ folks and you're thinking this doesn't apply to you, I'd encourage you to at least give it a shot. It's not only the absolute best of the best who get these jobs.
I recently decided to do a round of interviews after 10+ years as an independent web / iOS dev, having never had a professional software dev job. I'm also a self-taught developer with a business degree from a no-name state school. Despite all that, I've been really surprised and happy with the market reception here in NYC. I got interest from the bigger guys like Amazon, FB, and Twitter, as well as smaller companies like Dropbox, Stripe, Square, Coinbase, etc. Last week, I got a very good senior / staff offer from one of the smaller public companies for around $400k in first year comp. With bonuses, promotions, refreshers, etc, that could easily average $500k - 600k per year over the next few years. And I had no competing offers. Some of the other companies I'm in the loop with will almost certainly offer quite a bit more, although I love this company that made the offer and I'll probably just drop the other interviews and take it. Comp isn't everything.
All this to say, if you're interested in making more $$ and these companies are hiring where you live, don't pass it up because you think it's only for hotshot 22-year-olds coming out of Stanford.
Have you studied extensively for the technical exams? I've tried, and I've gotten interviews at several of the FAANGs as well as some desirable mature startups, but I fail at the technical screeinging stage. Not sure if I've tanked it or was close, but I get the "no hire" call or email after take-home projects or whiteboard exams.
Btw, to give you sense of it, I'd have no trouble finding a loop in a linked list, printing all permutations of a set, or searching a tree recursively. I'd have to puzzle a bit to figure out how to do DFS vs BFS, but I'd get there, I don't have it loaded into memory. I wouldn't be able to implement merge sort on the spot, I'd need to look it up, though I could probably get it frontloaded. All I can say is dayum those interview exams are hard, what I described is a pre-req, nobody will just ask you to permute a set, but if you can't, you'll never solve whiteboard the problem they ask you in 45 minutes.
For take-home projects, one (a rails app) was rejected because I used named routes rather than using the more conventional methods (I know this wouldn't be good to do in a production app... guess I just wasn't thinking about routes, it was a demo app, so I just threw some names routes in there for demo purposes, it was a take-home), along with some "duplicated" code that I thought was justified but never got to explain (I personally think extracting this into another method would be a pre-optimization that would need to be undone when the methods diverged, something I thought would be likely under the admittedly fabricated business requirements). I did have what I though was good testing, the reviewers did complement that along with some aspects of the app in their review.
Sorry, don't mean to give you my sob story, I just... I'm at the point where I wouldn't mind a crack at these jobs but just feel like maybe it's not an effort that's going to pay off (I mean, how much more time do I really want to spend on the kind of problems in cracking the coding interview? I actually feel like I got something out of studying it and preparing, but going back over and over, nah... maybe other people retain this stuff better than I do, and you know, maybe that does actually say something about suitability for these jobs).
How many tech screens and interviews did you do? I cast a pretty wide net to start, so I was in the loop to some degree at a bunch of companies over the last ~7 weeks, which was exhausting. But I didn't really think I had much shot at these bigger tech companies, honestly, so I interviewed at a ton of NYC startups too. The practice was really helpful.
I haven't totaled up my stats, but this is roughly how things went:
1. Once I got a recruiter on the phone, I had a 100% chance of going to next stage
2. For take-home projects, I had a 100% pass rate (did 3-4 of these)
3. For online assessments, I had a 50% pass rate (did 2 of these)
4. For live coding screens, had about a 60% pass rate (did 10-12 of these)
5. For onsites, I had a 50% offer rate. I did 4 of these at NYC startups, and 2 at bigger tech companies, one of which made an offer. Still waiting to hear from other one, but not hopeful.
I'm still in loop at 3 big tech companies.
The point is, it's pretty random. I flopped a couple of tech screens pretty badly because the interviewer was just difficult. Some give easy questions, some give hard. Some you click with, some you don't. And you get better at this over time too.
(I've also been amused to watch startups give more challenging interviews than the big tech companies and then make offers that are 1/2 as valuable)
In terms of prep, I took a data structures / algos class at Harvard Extension a couple years ago that was really helpful, and then I've been doing some Leetcode and CTCI problems the last couple months. Not enough though, honestly. I also went through some mock interviews with Interviewing.io and TripleByte, both of which were helpful.
By far the most helpful thing though is that both of the big tech companies where I did onsites actually tested me on mostly real world iOS dev, not generalist whiteboarding algorithms. And the other tech companies where I'm in the mix have also been a little more flexible. Twitter for example offered me the option of a take-home iOS project or a traditional 1-hour generalist tech screen. Although their onsite is still whiteboard coding algorithms from what I understand. Sigh...
Thanks for your reply! Your pass rate is quite a bit higher than mine - I'm 0/2 on projects, probably 2/5 on interviews (I'm only counting the in-person interviews, don't have a problem with phone screen level). Some were much easier than others. I think my most recent interview was a couple years ago, though, haven't done much of it lately. I do agree with you and the other reply (mdocherty) that it is a bit random and you only need to connect once. That said, it's not totally "free", there's no real point (for me at least) in going into these without substantial prep.
At my google interview, I asked for 3 weeks. My lunchtime "interview" (this one is unscored, just a chat) told me that he had requested and studied for 6 months! Seriously.
Now, some of that may seem nuts, but if you really don't know much about data structures, algorithms, binary arithmetic (or are very very rusty on it), I can see how a stretch of studying would be good for you. But once you have, it starts to feel like re-studying for your midterms. Still, for $250k and up, with growth potential... yeah, I can see why people are willing to keep going through the washing machine.
Lastly, I suspect you're just a little better at this than I am. I think I'm in range, but it's a little more of a stretch.
All it takes is for once successful interview loop. There is really no downside to interviewing. The bar is high but manageable just keep practicing!
That's awesome that you got so much success from interviewing at FAANGS. But, I'd say you've done a lot better than most people could. So, give yourself some credit.
Looks like they're including RSUs for private companies as equivalent to cash, which dramatically skews the data.
For private companies, RSUs aren't liquid, and ISOs actually cost money to exercise, so they arguably have negative value. Treating them as cash-equivalent makes these rankings very misleading.
They're certainly not cash equivalent but I don't think it's disingenuous to include in rankings. The fact is people evaluate that number and even use it as 'competing' offers. It does sway the market liquid or illiquid. I remember when Uber was on a hiring spree a few years ago and was throwing eye-popping numbers. I had several friends switch to Uber or other companies and use the Uber offer for negotiation.
Aren't Stripe and Airbnb the only two private companies on these lists? And for both of those I would assume they're doing RSUs, not options? But agreed on the lack of liquidity. Cash is king.
They would be remiss not to include this when making a statement about total compensation.
> They would be remiss not to include this when making a statement about total compensation.
Ideally they would be separated out. But if you have to make a single ranking, it's way more misleading to include RSUs/options for private companies than would be to ignore them.
These salaries are incredibly high for someone who never worked at a tech company in the valley. What's the general consensus on whether these salaries will increase, decrease, or stay the same in the medium term (i.e., next 5-10 years)?
I want to think there will be a correction (because in so many ways it seem obnoxious), but frankly I don't see the need for their skills falling anytime soon. Tech drives everything in our world, and specifically, software.
What kind of defeatist mentality is this? There should be a correction in the other direction, if anything.
Meaning, software dev salaries should go up at these companies?
All across the industry. Engineers seem to be the most self-defeating self-doubting bunch when it comes to money. If you create X% of the value, do you want your compensation to be commensurate with your contribution, or do you want to experience a "correction" because it's "obnoxious", while the executive class enjoys the spoils?
I have worked with brilliant software engineers who have expressed thoughts such as "personally I think I'm being paid too much". It's just crazy to me that this attitude exists, and I'm sure it's encouraged by people who don't think like that at all.
With nothing to back me up except the general impression I have, these numbers look out-of-whack even for the highest-paying employers in the Bay Area.
I know I'm just a random internet commenter and thus you could be forgiven for thinking I'm making things up, but I just got an offer from a smaller public tech company for a senior / staff level position making almost $400k in first year comp. I'm pretty confident that after negotiation we'll land a little over $400k. And recruiters at several other tech companies where I'm interviewing have told me they can match or exceed this offer. I think FB or Snap would pay more than $600k at this level, but I don't want to work for either of them :)
To be fair, I have 12 years of experience, 9 of that in mobile dev, but all of it is self-employment experience. Comp is just insane at the top companies.
If you can get 600K at FB or Snap, you must be a top 3% candidate, according to FYI.levels, right?
I mean, I don't know? To be fair, I have not gotten an offer from either of those companies. Maybe I never could. But I did get an offer from a company that competes with them for talent and it's roughly at the L5 level at Snap and E6 level at FB. Looking at levels.fyi, I'm seeing $550k - 575k, and given that the offer I got was about $50k higher than the data levels.fyi has for the company in question, I don't think hitting $600k is crazy, especially if you have competing offers.
It appears to be adding up a lot of different things into one number:
- base salary (cash)
- sign-on bonus (typically a large one-time equity grant that vest over 3-4 years)
- a raise each year (cash)
- an accompanying equity grant (which also vests over 3-4 years)
Where the whole thing seems weird to me is that they seem to be comparing pre-IPO options/RSUs to actual stocks as if they were apples-to-apples. This matters because the fraction of an amount that is attributable to equity is typically large (sign-on total value is a few times the amount of base salary for a year, for example, so I wouldn't be surprised if these numbers were 50-75% equity)
We have verified offer letters for several of these companies that users have submitted to us.
It would probably be an interesting article to delve into what accounts for the difference between the Bay Area's $227,000 median (which sounds about right) and the $400K-$500K that 5 years of experience gets at the top of your list. The difference is striking, essentially paying double the median amount for moderately experienced employees.
That's easy: most people aren't senior/staff engineers.
Considering that the overall category is "software engineering compensation", many people will be senior/staff engineers, unless people are constantly washing out in less than 5 years time.
Staff usually makes up less than 10% of people, and senior is above the median at most places.
Levels.Fyi further biases towards new grads. A more representative sample would likely move the median higher. And most people are at the low end of senior after five years, if that.
Let me reiterate that: the median silicon valley swe has under 5YOE.
I would just add that some people never make it to staff level. 5 years is a _minimum_ but majority of folks take longer to get there.
What's in Pittsburgh driving the median so high? I know Carnegie Mellon is there, but I was not aware of any sort of commercial tech hub.
Zaheer from Levels.fyi here. Argo AI & Duolingo are based out of Pittsburgh. Uber & Google also have a decent sized presence. Some more context on their tech scene here: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-pittsburgh-tech/a-tech-bo...
Huh, it's been about a decade since I last visited Pittsburgh, I had no idea. Thanks for sharing.
Pretty much all the big tech companies have a presence here.
From what I can remember, Microsoft (Azure Storage), Amazon (ML Alexa Teams), Google, Uber (ATG), Argo AI, Aurora, Facebook (Oculus), Duolingo, and Apple are all have offices in the city.
In the suburbs I think Netapp and Oracle have offices.
Significant concentration of AI & ML teams probably raises the median (thanks to CMU). Some of the hottest skills in the market today.
Facebook also has a FAIR office in addition to Oculus in Pittsburgh.
Uber, Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon all are present. What’s clearly wrong or at least misleading about this data is that they represent only a small fraction of the tech workforce in pgh. Other than Uber and Google these are only small offices. They also happen to be some higher paying jobs within those organizations. The reality is that most tech people in Pittsburgh are looking at jobs at UPMC, PNC, NetApp or a handful of smaller companies and poorly funded startups, few of which pay particularly well nor have worthwhile equity comp even relative to the low COL small markets.
This 170k median doesn’t fit with other stats available, and is only true if your sample is limited to FAANG and unicorns, which exists, but is small in Pittsburgh.
Self-driving cars in part due to its proximity to CMU.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_corporations_in_Pittsb... Not from the area but could be a ton of drivers.
Lots of AI & robotics companies, as well as FANG + Msft like companies opening offices here.
As a Canadian Software Engineer with 10+ years of experience.. I think this list is comical..
I've managed to barely squeeze 120k-130k CAD (90-100k USD) out of big companies here (e.g Shopify). I'm not sure if having free medicare is worth losing 2-300k...
Oh and I've tried applying for remote positions in the US and I get the good ol compensation skewed based on COL mantra.
I feel like this list is skewed by cost of living. The top four cities are also very expensive cities to live in and around. 200k in the bay area is scraping by whereas 100k in the Austin area gets you a house in a reasonable amount of time.
Are there any plans to provide adjustments like that?
Can we please stop with the hyperbole? $200k in the bay area is emphatically not scraping by. You can live on your own, without roommates, save money and have a social life if you have a $200k income in SFBA.
What people (especially on HN) think "scraping by" looks like is getting a little nuts. Just because you can't have an opulent lifestyle and a cheap five bedroom house doesn't mean you're struggling. $200k in SFBA is well beyond the point where all your basic needs are met.
The fact that you have have to stipulate that one can live without roommates and "all basic needs are met" with a $200,000 salary proves the OP's point. That's more than 6 times the median annual income in the US.
The median home price in the Bay area is ~$1.5 million, so at $200k salary you'd be stretched with that kind of mortgage. Most homes where I'm from aren't worth $200k. What about child care, and the cost of commuting? You might not be "scraping by" on $200k in SV, but should that even be remotely a concern at a white-collar job working for some of the biggest companies on the planet?
No, my stipulations don't prove OP's point, and it's concerning to me that so many people think they do. Believe it or not, there is a vast underclass of people who live and work in San Francisco who are actually struggling because they make less than half that. They don't work in tech and they can't even think about these problems because of the more pressing ones they're facing.
You're talking about things like buying a house and finding non-familial child care; these are people worried about receiving government assistance for food and finding affordable rent with bad credit and almost intractable debt. They're scraping by because they wish they could "stretch" a salary like $200k to afford any home and make day care work. Most Americans do not pay for child care, and wouldn't expect to.
I'm going to double down and reiterate here: just because you can't do all the things you want to do doesn't mean you're scraping by. That's a disingenuous definition of the term. If you consider $200k to be "scraping by", what do you call the people who will actually be looking after your kids in day care? How much do you suppose they earn per year?
Having grown up below the poverty line, I'll double down on my original point as well. Most people don't work in tech and most people get screwed. The idea behind minimum wage is to provide all the necessities to everyone, be it housing, childcare, or food. When I interviewed with Google my Uber drivers all talked about how they had been forced to further and further suburbs because of tech workers and the rising cost of housing. I'm not bashing people on government assistance. Instead, I think more should be done for them by people like us.
That being said, you have just proved my point. If I can buy a house in Austin for half the starting salary in the Bay Area then, by that metric, if I can't in the Bay Area, I'm just scraping by.
it all depends on your situation. Sure, as a single person 200K is doing well. But, 200K with a family of 4 (2 kids and a wife) is definately scraping by on the penninsula or SF. The only way that's not scraping by is if you bought your house over 20 years ago (or during 2010-2012 housing slump) OR you got yourself a Rent controlled apartment. Other than that, You ARE scraping by.
In SF, day care is almost 3K per month per child! On the penninsula/SF, if you rent a 3 bedroom apartment, it'll cost 4k-6K or so per month or more, that's 60K of your 130K take home pay.
>But, 200K with a family of 4 (2 kids and a wife) is definately scraping by on the penninsula or SF.
Lol. No, it isn't. It is absolutely mind blowing what the general tech industry thinks "scraping by" means. The median household income in SF is less than 100k. At 200k, you make more than twice that. If you're just "scraping by" with 200k, then I can't even imagine what people making less than the median are doing.
Child care in San Francisco, the kind that goes from 8am to 6pm, runs over $2500 a month. That's not ultraluxe, that's pretty standard fare, and my estimate is probably on the low side. A 3br house in an unfashionable but largely safe part of town is probably well over $4000 in rent. Again, that's not a high estimate. If you have 2 kids in daycare and are paying a mortgage or even just renting, you're looking at $9,000 a month in these expenses alone.
Wealth in San Francisco is more measured by when you got into the housing market than what you make, salary-wise, unless you're quite a ways up.
Now, a two income family with tech jobs is likely going to have at least 300k in family income (though even with the expensive 8am to 6pm day care, expect lots of phone calls coordinating who will scramble over to day care before 6). These families are not "scraping by", and I agree we need to be careful with hyperbole. But the median household income may not reflect the cost structure for new arrivals to the housing market who lack the family structure that would cushion the blow of daycare costs.
Being able to afford 8 hours of child care for multiple kids every weekday, and a mortgage/rent on a 3br house, is way above what most Americans consider scraping by. Americans who are scraping by use family, friends, and spouses for child care (or just hope for the best), and they live in low-cost housing often in pretty bad neighborhoods with bad schools that are far away. They also have trouble affording health insurance, they often share a single car (if they even have a car), have debt, and aren't saving.
Do you send your kids to daycare when you have a stay at home wife? Those numbers doesn't make sense, either your wife stays at home so no need for daycare or she works and earns money covering for the daycare costs and likely more.
The Median houshold in SF has a rent controlled apartment and no kids (roughly 70% or more is rent controlled). If that's not you, you will have hard time.
>If that's not you, you will have hard time.
Only if you're a buffoon with your budget. A non-rent controlled, very large apartment in SF proper will run you $3-4k/mo. You can even bump that up to $5k/mo if you really wanted to go luxurious or pay for a 2-3 bedroom, and you would still be under the recommended "30% of salary goes to housing" metric. If you purchased a typical 30 year mortgage on a $1.5million house, you would still be at only 40% of salary spent on housing, and that's with an entry level salary! Most people cannot even dream of affording a home until they are in their 30s.
An entry level worker being able to afford a sizable home and still take away several thousand dollars a month in savings is so well off compared to the vast majority of Americans that it's outright insulting to say that they are anywhere even remotely close to "scraping by" or "having a hard time".
Sure but 200k is a 1-2 yoe number. A single income family of four with a just-graduated breadwinner won't be incredibly comfortable anywhere. Especially if they're paying for childcare instead of having the stay at home parent handle it.
with a family of 4 (2 kids and a wife)
Ugh, really? It's 2019. Women actually have careers too, even in tech! And men can marry other men and raise children!
Scraping by with a stay-at-home wife?
*spouse
I agree. Whenever someone points out high cost of living, they mention high rents.
Is $3000 per month a good estimate for bay area? or am I underestimating.
This is about $2000 a month higher than reasonable rent. This means, your annual cost of living increased by $24,000.
$24,000 per annum is the difference between a small town, and bay area. Am I missing something? Do you pay for apples $20 a lb instead of $2-5 a lb? Is your electricity bill $600 a month instead of $100-200 a month?
What else is expensive in Bay Area other than rent?
If you barely scrape by on $200K in bay area, are you saying you barely scrape by on $176K in a small town?
Food costs more. When I visit people in other parts of even the state of California I'm shocked at how cheap stuff is at the market.
Services cost more (going out to eat, the car wash, childcare, anything where labor is involved).
That's a good question. Eveyone focuses on rent/ mortgage. Do normal goods cost more cost you have to pay all workers more, do costs go up across the board?
> What else is expensive in Bay Area other than rent?
Childcare, income taxes, transportation.
edit: I don't understand why I'm getting downvotes these things are all expensive.
What's wrong with hyperbole? You seem to be saying: unless you're sickly and starving in some unloved corner of Ethiopia, then you're not "scraping by"? Ok, then, but then by that same logic, no one in the Bay area is "scraping by". People are pointing out (validly IMHO) that 2 bed rent + preschool for 2 kids don't leave you a whole lot of disposable income left in the Bay each month if your household income is 200k and you're used to middle class lifestyle anywhere outside of Bay Area (which would be a reasonable expectation, given that that's what the equivalent work experience elsewhere would grant you).
> You seem to be saying: unless you're sickly and starving in some unloved corner of Ethiopia, then you're not "scraping by"?
Nope! I'm not saying that. Read my reply to a sibling comment here, I think it largely responds to the point you're making. I'll reiterate again: being unable to afford all the luxuries you'd like is not equivalent to any reasonable definition of "scraping by."
As an aside, I find it funny in a meta sort of way that while we're talking about hyperbole, you interpreted my point to be literally about starving people in Africa.
Is it that much different though? You're saying "X is not scraping by, look at Z for proof"; I just happened to pick a Z for which your argument becomes weak: I could have picked single moms w/ kids w/ cerebral palsy too, but the point is that we're cherrypicking a sob story that isn't all that relevant to the demographic being discussed. The non-literal interpretation of the OP is more along the lines of what I said earlier: "Bay Area middle class is shittier than middle class elsewhere"
Yes! We're working on Cost-of-living (CoL) comparisons and adjustments. We've just finished extensively normalizing our data (which we used for this report). The next steps are better analysis over it including things like CoL.
> 200k in the bay area is scraping by
People say these things, it's not very accurate even though the bay area is obviously very expensive.
You've got roughly $130,000 in take-home pay at $200k in the bay area. Your employer is paying for your health insurance.
Even if you're paying $5,000 per month in rent for an apartment, you're still not scraping by. You've got $60k to $70k (depending) to distribute to everything else (food, utilities, lifestyle, etc), with housing and health covered. You can trivially buy a year old Mercedes or BMW sedan every year if you feel like it, like all those other people barely getting by.
You can spend $2,000 per month eating out, instead of $400 cooking for yourself, if you feel like it, as with all those other people choosing between their vast food options while living on food stamps.
>200k in the bay area is scraping by
What a gross exaggeration. Had you said 90k and for a family, then sure, but unless you consider "not having a new Tesla" as scraping by, this is disingenuous.
Source: Lived in Bay Area all my life with under $200k salary, not homeless, not scraping by, saving (a little bit) of money, able to go out with friends and my hair isn't falling out from being unable to pay bills. Maybe some of the big earners out there would consider my lifestyle "scraping by" but I like to think I know the difference between "scraping by" and "living within your means".
> Lived in Bay Area all my life
I have as well until recently. Living in SF that's probably a close to accurate statement. If you live in Concord or Martinez (which is still technically the Bay Area), you can do quite nicely. Although, you'll trade ~2 hours of your life in commuting on Bart. Not to mention the overall discomfort of the Bart commute itself (better than the drive however).
Probably just talking about owning a home.
To a lot of people it doesn't matter how many fancy toys they have, they want stability.
That makes it even more to the point; there are probably a dozen cities in the Bay Area where one could afford a house on a 200k household income without "scraping by".
San Jose, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, Martinez, Antioch, Pittsburg, Hayward, Union City, Livermore, Milpitas, Morgan Hill, Gilroy, Richmond are all places you can get a house with a 200k salary in the Bay Area. There's probably a lot more, too. It's an indefensible statement.
> living within your means
This cannot be understated.
> I feel like this list is skewed by cost of living. The top four cities are also very expensive cities to live in and around.
This... is how the world works.
Is it? Shouldn't salaries be higher in Vancouver or Hong Kong?
I've adjusted avg salaries based on cost of living here: https://skilldime.com/blog/see-which-cities-pay-the-highest-...
But, note, the above is for average software engineering salaries, not for the sky high FANGS.
Pittsburgh is not that expensive, you can get two bedroom apartment in the middle of the city for $1k a month and they still pay huge salaries there. So the CoL adjustment is not that big, you get a little less in low CoL than in high CoL, the main driver of these large salaries is the company and not the location.
Is this getting flagged? It's currently near the bottom of page 4, and should be in the top 10 of page 1. Are HN'ers just bitter / skeptical of these numbers?
I don't know why it's falling away from the front page, but as far as skepticism goes, numbers that surprising raise more questions than answers. Your anecdotes have been very informative by the way.
Controversial items can sometimes fall due to the anti-flamewar code. If it thinks the article is generating a flamewar in the comments it will get sunk.
Obviously San Francisco and New York City have the highest salaries... they have the highest cost of living. Can we get a list adjusted for cost of living?
Depends on who you're living with. When I first moved to SF, living in a dorm downtown w/ shared bathrooms/kitchen among some ~50 people, I was paying $1.8k/mo. Then my wife and kids joined me, and we moved to a "proper" place in outer richmond. The cost for 2 bed + 1 kid in preschool went to 6.5k/mo. If you're single, you're probably looking in the range of 3.6 - 4.5k for a 2 bed rent, or half of that if you can get a roommate. Transit runs you about $80-100/mo. So if you're young and cheap, there's a lot of opportunity to build up a bank.
On the other hand, If you are married w/ toddlers and your spouse is on a non-work visa, you're gonna have some tougher luck w/ COL.
How is the level mapping between various companies decided?
Within a company, levels codify the hierarchy, scope & responsibility of employees. The question we try to answer with our mapping is: "If an employee at company X were to switch to company Y, which level would they come in at?". The answer then is: what is the equivalent scope / responsibility across companies. There's several other factors (company size, interview performance, etc) that go into actual leveling when you switch companies and thus we really emphasize that this is a rough guide. I think we've settled on something that's generally agreeable for most folks. We constantly take feedback though and adjust based on what we hear from users switching between companies.
Is there data on the UK / London available?
Honestly if you're a software engineer in the UK and you're concerned about salary... you should move to the United States.
Who isn't concerned about salary? Who is _only_ concerned about salary?
Like most software engineers in the UK, I could almost certainly make at least triple by moving to the US but I don't consider it worthwhile for me. Many people do - there's no right answer.
https://www.levels.fyi/comp.html?track=Software%20Engineer
Note that the figures are in US Dollars. In next few months we'll be adding better currency support.
Can we separate salary from stock-based comps?
If you click through to the company page, we have a graph with breakdown of salary, stock & bonus (ex. https://www.levels.fyi/salary/Lyft/).
Why? They're all reported the same as income on your taxes
Compensation from stock grants is significantly more volatile than base salary or bonus targets, but otherwise I don’t see a major difference.
Not if it's not actual stocks (i.e. pre-IPO companies).
Does this data include Cyber Security type jobs?
These salaries is kind of obscene. But then, the conduct and social impact (in the US or outside of it) of many of these companies is also kind of obscene: Lyft and Uber employ pseudo-freelancers for very low effective wages; AirBnB are keeping apartments out of the regular rental market in favor of jacked up per-day prices; Facebook tracks everybody and shapes (to some extent) their consciousness and knowledge of the world; and so on.