Netflix has job with almost $1M listed salary range, to comply with new CA law
jobs.netflix.comGood for the engineer who is an expert in those audio and video testing and can get hired for the role. We should be thankful engineering has provided many folk who were previously poor, an opportunity to rise to the middle class simply by studying and being smart.
You're right but I think you're missing the point. Offering a range that broad in the job listing is just an effort to flaunt a law. That law was put into place to help the people you're talking about.
It’s not flaunting a law. It’s a typical built in Sacramento law written by dilettantes who can’t think through the simplest of problems.
Just like the “can’t charge extra for using a credit card” law. Prices went up and gas stations give a cash discount.
"Can't charge extra for using a credit card" is a contractual condition imposed by the credit card companies. If anything there should be a law voiding such conditions as contrary to sound public policy. Why should cash or debit card users in a competitive market be charged extra to subsidize rewards for credit card users, for example?
Built in Sacramento https://oag.ca.gov/consumers/general/credit-card-surcharges
It is always convenient for businesses to have the legislature enforce their preferred contract conditions in statutory law, but this particular statute sounds like it is unenforceable.
Well, there is a law that states you can't charge extra for using a certain credit card.
If you want to charge for credit card payments, the same fee has to apply to all cards you accept.
Because they don't. Handling cash is expensive, and typically costs more than credit card fees.
Yes it is.
Perhaps Netflix is not _breaking_ a law, which itself may have been written by "dilettantes", but this action certainly disabuses us of the notion that Netflix has any intention to adhere to the spirit of the law, which was to reduce racial and gender-based salary gaps.
The "spirit of the law" is to bend reality. Laws are always well intended but are often, to put it bluntly, stupid. If it were really that easy, we'd be living in paradise now. Just write another law!
The only thing wrong with the current situation is, unfortunately, anyone naive enough to believe that this law was supposed to have the intended effect. Otherwise, it's functioning exactly as any sensible person would have predicted.
Is it flouting a law though?
The credit card thing mostly isn't a law, it's part of the merchant agreements. There's a few states with a "no fees" law (which all allow cash discounts):
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2021/04...
The typical cash discount at any gas station in California that I've seen is 10 cents.
I get 3% back on gas purchases from my credit card.
Question: At what price per gallon does it stop making cents (heh) to buy with cash?
Hint: California hasn't had gas at that price for many years already.
Written by the same people that gave us the “everything causes cancer” warnings?
> Written by the same people that gave us the “everything causes cancer” warnings?
No, Prop 65 was written by a lawyer for the Environmental Defense Fund and proposed and passed as an initiative measure, SB 1162 was written by Senator Monique Limon and adoptef by the State Legislature. Different people, different process.
I presume they meant people who share similar values and beliefs, not literally the same individuals. Specifically, the kind of liberal values associated with California, since the state is often mocked for said "cancer" warnings outside of the state (or other states with similar values).
The minimum salary paid for a position is useful information. The median or estimated median may be as well. Legislated disclosure of a maximum is useless. It implies that employees are interchangeable widgets with a cap on their market value that isn't more than some reasonable percentage of the minimum.
There are true superstars out there that some companies can afford to compensate properly, but they are generally remarkably atypical and their salary is irrelevant to what a person of ordinary talent and experience can expect. I think it is great that some of them are worth and can be paid nearly $1M / year, but I wouldn't expect that to be relevant to the salary negotiation of most engineers taking a job with similar duties.
>The minimum salary paid for a position is useful information
Is it? I found SWE roles with a salary range from 50,000-50,000. But in reality I doubt there's any engineers at Netflix making 50k
Misrepresentation of salaries actually paid is false advertising. There was a time when stores would get in trouble for advertising discounts from prices no one actually paid either, like a permanent sale.
Or they're complying in good faith. They may very well be flexible and not really care if they hire a fresh out of school grad or a seasoned expert with a rockstar resume. They'll hire either and pay accordingly.
Maybe, but I don't buy that a FAANG would hire a fresh-out-of-school grad at L5 with a $90k salary.
The L5 thing is weird because the listed minimum qualifications would apply someone 4yr out of college (which doesn't usually correlate with L5) and the rest of the listing is very much worded in a way that is seniority-agnostic.
Depending on how many of the requested qualifications (i.e. you come from a background that gives you little to no experience on most of them but a lot of depth on one specific ones) you hit 90k may be reasonable.
This really just looks like a boilerplate job description with the bare minimum tweaks. Not surprising that the salary range wasn't tweaked.
There is likely no engineer at that level, instead they're gaming the law. They're required to report their salary range for transparency, and they're basically replying with "our salaries are between between 0 and $1M".
I know a couple of Netflix employees making over 700k cash. I also have a friend who was a recruiter at Netflix that handled an offer to an engineer for $1M cash. These are real numbers.
That’s fine but, there are probably multiple levels that have been glommed into one req…which makes it look not great. There should be jr, sr, principal, staff, etc.
Previously Netflix only had 2 levels: software engineer and senior software engineer. I heard they were going to change that but I don’t know to what extent that was changed.
Tell your friend I’m willing to slum it for $999k.
Don’t expect more than 40 hours per week though. It’s not like you’re paying me the big bucks that Mike is getting.
EDIT: On a serious note, I’d be all over this if they offered remote, but if they did they’d not offer nearly as much.
Cash? That seems inconvenient.
This posting has a greater range ($330,000 - $1,800,000): https://jobs.netflix.com/jobs/253949563
As the range is based on total comp, it makes sense. If you are at the bottom of that range (which is likely just the base salary), you will probably be laid off (Netflix is transparent about this). It's still a massive range. I wonder how much of that total comp range is due to them estimating a certain amount of volatility (50%? 100%?) in their stock price.
Netflix famously pays entirely base salary, letting employees take what percentage as options.
In this case, they are reporting potential base because of their somewhat unique comp structure.
A lot of people responding on here don’t seem to understand that $900k/yr is a very real salary at Netflix. They pay top of the market and it’s all in cash.
The pressure is very real and lots of people get fired quickly (a PM I worked with said she saw over 20 engineers let go in the 2 years she was there) but I find that the ones that stay at Netflix for a long time love it and are never worried about being fired.
why are they shooting themselves in the foot with a 90k minimum? looking at levels.fyi, 400-900 for a senior engineer would be way more enticing
Unsurprising. The ca law unfortunately isn’t robust enough. Standard deviation and inter quartile range is necessary in order to make any real assessment here. Ideally mean and median too.
I thought the law is specifying base salary required, but not total comp.
Meanwhile, Netflix offers flexibility in choosing base vs. equity rewards. So, while not required to, Netflix is providing the total comp guidance:
"This market range is based on total compensation (vs. only base salary), which is in line with our compensation philosophy."
> The ca law unfortunately isn’t robust enough
Maybe, though Netflix just seems to just be blatantly violating the law, and the probably-unreasonable width of the range isn’t the most bright-line way. (Explicitly using total compensation instead of the mandatory salary or hourly wage is.)
Netflix famously pays entirely base salary, letting employees take what percentage as options.
In this case, they are reporting potential base because of their somewhat unique comp structure.
Why? Let the market figure it out. If people don't like what Netflix is doing, then they won't apply for the job.
If this was anything but highly paid jobs in the tech industry, letting “the market figure it out” will not go well.
Salary lower than minimum wage? No legal minimum parental leave granted? Hazardous work environment? Just quit and apply somewhere else!
Certainly anyone applying for this job should ask "how do I qualify for the $900k salary band?" How is the interviewer going to answer that?
> How is the interviewer going to answer that?
“Why don’t you tell me?”
You don't check off list items to get into some predetermined upper band, you make them want to hire you even if they have to top out their budget for the role.
To me it feels like the range of $90k-900k is for all SWE IC levels, whereas the job post is specifically for L5. It cannot be that the range is so broad for a specific SWE level. By posting the overall range of SWE, the whole exercise becomes meaningless, because, of course interns earn (relatively) peanuts and the one "John Carmack guy" almost makes a million..
If you poke at the L5 for Netflix, https://www.levels.fyi/companies/netflix/salaries/software-e... you will see that the range of compensation reported is $180k to $1.5M (an exception, the next cluster is at $900k). Putting a $90k to $900k on that application appears to be reasonable in that context.
based on levels.fyi for netflix, either netflix hires 50+ john carmacks, or it is a realistic sum for top performing L5s
This clearly does not comply with the law [0]. The listed range is based on total comp which it justifies with an appeal to Netflix’s “compensation philosophy”; the law, however, specifically defines the “pay scale” that must accompany a posting as being the “the salary or hourly wage range that the employer reasonably expects to pay for the position” [1], not total compensation, and the law does not include an exception for alternative compensation philosophy.
[0] even ignoring the sizs of the range and the use of “reasonably expects” in the law, which I suspect, unless there are some very unusual factual circumstances applicable to the position, would also be problematic
[1] Cal Labor Code 432.3(m)(1) as adopted in SB 1162 of 2022.
Why do you think this is not cash comp? Friends at Netflix have told me employees get to choose the balance of cash/equity, and an employee can choose all cash.
Netflix is famous for its all cash compensation packages.
> Netflix is famous for its all cash total compensation packages.
Netflix uses “total compensation” to mean “total compensation excluding benefits”?
Or Netflix has no (including those required by federal and state law for an employer of their size) benefits?
(And it doesn’t, as it was previously reported to, have “free option” as part of its employee equity program that provides an amount equal to 5% of salary for stock option purchases, which would be very much a non-salary-or-hourly-wage part of total comp?)
Netflix pays all base, with separate allowances for benefits. It lets employees choose what percentage of their base is granted as options. It's all very public: https://jobs.netflix.com/work-life-philosophy
> Stock Option Program: Each employee chooses each year how much of their compensation they want in salary versus stock options. You can choose all cash, all options, or whatever combination suits you. You choose how much risk and upside (down) you want. These 10-year stock options are fully-vested and you keep them even if you leave Netflix.
> Netflix pays all base, with separate allowances for benefits
The details from 2020 (only ones I can find) I've seen posted say they have, e.g., a $15k allowance for health insurance, of which only $5k is refundable as cash if not used, and a 5% on top of base “free option” stock option purchase in their ESPP, as well as choice for elective purchase, and other compensation in excess of salary and hourly wage.
OTOH, if they actually are just calling their “base” (which is in fact at least potentially salary) “total comp” when it is isn’t actually total total comp, just closer to total comp than base salary typically is for the industry, that’s probably not a violation of the law.
the issue is that the employee has the option of turning a portion of that base into options. which means netflix is de facto offering "total comp", with "100% cash" being one option for that total comp offer.
I'm shocked about their questions on their job application form! It's considered illegal to ask those questions in my country because they can be used for discrimination. Is this normal practice in the US?
> What gender identity do you most closely identify with?
> Are you a person of transgender experience?
> Please select the race and/or ethnic identities you identify with
> What sexual orientation do you most closely identify with?
> Do you live with a disability (as outlined by the ADA)?
This is extremely normal in the US. Employers (above a certain size threshold) are required to ask these questions, and to report aggregated statistics to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on an annual basis.
But employees/candidates are not themselves required to answer the questions. And if they do, employers are forbidden from using the information for discriminatory purposes.
(Realistically, if somebody is intent on discriminating based on race/sex/etc., they're going to do it based on the candidate's self-presentation, regardless of how they answer the questionnaire.)
Orientation and gender identity are new to me, though it’s been a minute since I applied for a job.
Shit's getting weird, man.
I could see it having a place on an intake form. But on a job application? Is it so they can schedule interviews based on your race and gender identity?
I can only speak from personal experience, but whenever I've hired folks, that information was only shared with HR.
Requiring companies to collect these statistics helps add hard data to any future lawsuits. It can provide an insight into whether or not members of protected classes have been systematically discriminated against during certain phases of the hiring process.
Supposedly, these are always survey questions for EEO research. You don't have to answer them as an applicant. Here's a decent breakdown: https://attorneyatlawmagazine.com/public-articles/employment...
It's also illegal for them to make decisions based off these. I have no idea how you would know if they did or not but that's what they say.
I think those are supposed to be for keeping statistics, there's some government place that companies sometimes have to report to.
Of course this somehow ends up with companies using "helps our dei score" as a major criterion for which candidate to pick.
I think the idea here is to use this information to "help" and "include" people, not to discriminate against them.
That is discrimination though. Any use of that info at all for hiring decisions is discrimination.
"discriminate* has two meanings:
* recognize a distinction; differentiate. (Discriminate between)
* make an unjust or prejudicial distinction in the treatment of different categories of people. (Discriminate against)
I meant they current trend is to do the former in order to offset historical use of the latter.
Whether that's fair or whether that will work long term is another question!
You forgot "discriminate in favor of" in your second point and incorrectly attributed the current trend to the first point, although perhaps you're seeing a different trend than me.
No perhaps I wasn't clear. the current trend is clearly "discriminate in favour in order to offset the discrimination against"
"Discriminate as differentiate" was a response to the comment I was replying to who said that "using any information means you'd be discriminating". Well, sure that's technically true but it's missing the point
These questions are optional, in my experience. I’ve never seen a form in a job application where these were required.
When I elected to not fill them in, HR told me that they would answer the questions for me. This was due to a "limitation of the system".
In my country it's absolutely illegal to ask, no matter if voluntary or involuntary.
in the US, it is required top ask, but optional to fill
I wonder what follow-through the law has to fix/avoid this kind of behavior?
I know some companies are now working to ensure that they no longer have a single listing for a job into which you could hire people at different levels, so that they can better honor the spirit of the law. It would be nice if the law itself ensured had a way to enforce or ensure that sort of behavior, but I don’t know what that would look like.
Avoid what behavior? If that's the possible range of salaries they'll offer for the role then they're doing exactly what the law intends.
Agreed. Based on what I've heard from others at Netflix, it is plausible that some engineers are making $900K cash comp.
Nearly all staff engineer and above are making close to, if not above, 900k cash comp, based on levels.fyi
Colorado has a similar law, but I've never observed this kind of "range-hacking." Why would this happen in CA but not CO?
Probably because of selection bias: most of the huge tech companies are headquartered in CA, not CO, and of those, the ones that are just batshit insane when it comes to hiring are also found more in CA than in CO.
And then because Netflix considered themselves a "dream team" snowflake, they even have a "we may decide to fire you if you're not the absolute best each week every week". But because of how they implement that, it really means "we'll fire you if you and your manager don't click". From https://jobs.netflix.com/culture:
"To strengthen our dream team, our managers use a “keeper test” for each of their people: if a team member was leaving for a similar role at another company, would the manager try to keep them? Those who do not pass the keeper test (i.e. their manager would not fight to keep them) are given a generous severance package so we can find someone even better for that position—making an even better dream team. Being on a dream team is the thrill of a professional lifetime, and team members are incredibly supportive of each other. This is why "You make time to help colleagues across Netflix succeed" is a valued behavior."
This is not a good company to work for, even if the people working there are amazing people to work with.
I wonder if it works the other way; can the employees apply a "keeper test" for managers? I have had several managers in the past that were not good and I would definitely vote out. What's good for the goose...
I guess it depends on how well liked you are by your manager.
Exactly. Absolute crazytown.
Microsoft? Amazon?
Are we seeing this sort of insult in all CA companies? Or just Netflix so far? It could just be Netflix being harmful to its present and future employees.
Is there really nothing in the law preventing companies from doing things like this? Could they say something even more absurd like $1-$1,000,000?
Pay scale is defined as:
> the salary or hourly wage range that the employer reasonably expects to pay for the position.
This posting likely violates it as the position specifies a level and at that specific level that whole range is not reasonable.
However enforcement requires a complaint:
> 432.3. (d) (1) A person who claims to be aggrieved by a violation of this section may file a written complaint with the Labor Commissioner within one year after the date the person learned of the violation. The complaint shall state the name and address of the employer and shall provide a detailed account of the alleged violation, as may be required by the Labor Commissioner.
and the fines aren't large.
> (4) Upon finding that an employer has violated this section, the Labor Commissioner may order the employer to pay a civil penalty of no less than one hundred dollars ($100) and no more than ten thousand dollars ($10,000) per violation. The Labor Commissioner shall determine the amount of the penalty based on the totality of the circumstances, including, but not limited to, whether the employer has previously violated this section. For a first violation of subdivision (c), no penalty shall be assessed upon demonstration by the employer that all job postings for open positions have been updated to include the pay scale as required by this section.
Although there's also the possibility of getting a court order to get them to fix it:
> (2) A person who claims to be aggrieved by a violation of this section may also bring a civil action for injunctive relief and any other relief that the court deems appropriate.
ref: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio...
> Is there really nothing in the law preventing companies from doing things like this?
The law specifies that the range must represent the reasonable expectation of the employer of pay for the position, so, were it challenged, it would be a question of fact if that whole range really was both the employers actual expected range, and whether the exepctation of the whole width of the range was objectively reasonable.
In the law? No; but, this is the sort of thing that people who care about equality in pay should look at and refuse to work at. If there can be an 800k difference between two different employees with the same title that sit next to each other, that's not a place I would want to work for and wouldn't even apply.
I strongly suspect no place would pay 800k otherwise. The reality is these companies cannot simply have 800k positions with well defined criteria - these compensation levels are reserved for people that would be especially painful to replace, and the criteria are rarely cut and dry. You could come up with a bigger hammer to prevent these practices, but in the end the exceptional employees are the only ones to lose - I bet companies would love there to be a blanket ban on large compensation in the industry.
> these compensation levels are reserved for people that would be especially painful to replace, and the criteria are rarely cut and dry.
So they'd be more like the "fellow" position at other companies, then, yes? Or the senior staff engineers?
The problem isn't the 900k, the problem is the 90-900k range. You can hide a lot of evil in a range that wide. You can hide gender and ethnic pay biases in that range.
a 500-750k range for Principal engineers or 500k to 2MM range for "Senior Staff Engineers" makes more sense than 90k to 900k.
> an 800k difference between two different employees with the same title
Nothing wrong with this. I personally find titles annoying, compensation ceilings based on titles moreso, so this would seem a decent culture filter. (I also like working with teams and seeing colleagues as, if not necessarily friends, very close acquaintances, so Netflix wouldn’t be a fit.)
If it's possible for there to be an $800k difference I am definitely applying.
https://www.levels.fyi/companies/netflix/salaries/software-e...
The lowest reported is $180k. The highest is $1.5M, but $900k is where most appear to top out.
90k to 900k is the difference between living as lower class to upper middle class at Silicon Valley.
Upper middle class? Is multi-millionaire not "rich" anymore?
High cost of living city. A million doesn’t go as far as it used to (inflation). Think about how much real estate has increased in the last 10 years. That’s the biggest expense for anyone.
Silicon Valley is expensive, but not so expensive that $900k/year is only middle class. That's $40k/month or so after taxes.
Aren’t relevant salary ranges supposed to save HR and the applicants time in the job search process?
> supposed to save HR and the applicants time in the job search process?
Colorado has had this law for a while. Has this been studied?
> This market range is based on total compensation (vs. only base salary),
Even if not the case here, isn't that to be expected then? Volatility in share price will put a big range in that figure for companies with less of the total comp in cash base salary.
This isn't the case at Netflix, who famously offer cash salaries and an option to elect to forego some salary in exchange for options. There are no RSUs at Netflix.
Also, RSU+cash salaries are almost universally quoted in year-of Total Direct Compensation, that is share value of the newly granted shares at the time they are granted each year, so volatility doesn't affect the TDC, only the actual realized TC.
Isn't a 'market range' not just Netflix? If not, (? and) it includes bonuses then, or something? Or else why call it out like that?
$90000-$900000 seems like sort of a cop out on the spirit of the law
That's what lawyers are paid for. All tech companies in California can just pick this range $90K to $900K for every tech job. That way, one doesn't need to update the salary range field for every job.
Presumably it’s not actually complying with the law. Try telling a Jude listing a salary range between minimum wage and 1 billion per year counts as salary disclosure.
That said, this could easily become the norm should enough companies do the same thing.
It's unlikely a job is actually offering $1B, whereas many engineers get $1M+.
It’s equally unlikely the actual salary range is 90k to 900k for the same position. The issue isn’t 900k as a number or 90k as a number it’s the vast difference between them.
People ask for and are worth vastly diffently amounts.
If they can expect to get and retain someone for 90k which can do the job then it’s hard to argue anyone is actually worth 10x as much.
I am not saying nobody makes 900k, just that if they are willing to budget 900k they might be looking for more from an applicant than someone whose skills only commands 90k base salary.
I work at one of these big companies, and at least how we do it is to see what kind of candidates we get, then compare seniority vs potential vs abilities, and decide which person is the best overall fit. This might be a junior person who gets $120k/year or a senior person that will get $400k/year. It depends on who applies, and how they would fit in with the team. 90-900k is quite a gap, but 150k-900k would be kind of reasonable to be honest.
That’s fair. I wouldn’t find it nearly as suspicious if they had said 250k to 900k.
Like every Austrian company every that quotes the CBA minimums on all job postings. Unless you are really running out of candidates there is no reason to post actual numbers.
Would be nice to see the total comp salary distribution for this kind of position.
Given what I'm seeing on levels.fyi for Netflix, they sound like exactly the sort of company that should be revealing their salaries more and that this law was made for (and of course they mock by offering such a ridiculous range).
https://www.levels.fyi/companies/netflix/salaries/software-e...
In the samples,
L5: 610k
L3: 70k
Good on Netflix. And good for the engineer who lands that role.
Hard working Engineers- 1.
California virtue signaling bureaucrats - 0.