> There are only a handful of companies that pay $400k/yr for senior software engineers and MSFT ain't one of them (facebook, and google do however).

None of the companies in top tier tech can afford to pay substantially less than any of its competitors. That's why they're "top tech".

If what you said was true, and FB or Google paid a lot more than say MSFT or AMZN, then all the best senior engineers would eventually leave the latter for the former, and only the bottom talent will retain. Then the latter won't be top tech in any meaningful sense.

In reality, FAANG are grouped together because they pay about the same and can compete with each other for the same level of talent. Other companies are in this category, just not as famous.

It's quite a well known fact in the Valley that FB/Google pay much better than MSFT/AMZN...and yes the best (or lets say a lot of them) engineers eventually do leave for FB/Google...AMZN has huge turnover. MSFT on the other hand is more of a rest and vest type of place with nice work life balance so not as many people are leaving.

No, he’s correct. MSFT pays a lot more in the Bay Area than Seattle because the cost of living is so much lower in Seattle (no state income tax, housing, etc) that they can get away with paying a lot less.

My total compensation went up by ~80% going from MSFT to FB (but my housing costs 3x in the Bay Area vs what I had in Boston so it’s not as large an increase as it sounds).

I'm not sure why you are trying to dispute my facts when it's clear you have never worked at any of the above companies based on your comments.

Even in Seattle it's well known that FB pays more than MSFT. So your theory about top tech needing to pay top dollar etc, doesn't hold.

You made the following claim:

> There are only a handful of companies that pay $400k/yr for senior software engineers and MSFT ain't one of them

This claim is false.

There are a lot more than "a handful" of companies paying $400k for senior engineers. MSFT will also pay you this amount in the Bay.

Overall, top tech pay about the same. You say FB pays better than MS in Seattle, and perhaps that is the case (as I stated above, I'm mostly familiar with the Bay, not so much with Seattle). In the Bay, the pay is very similar. There could be many reasons why FB would pay more than MSFT in the Seattle: for example, MSFT has a huge office there, and FB probably only a small one. So it's a pretty wise strategy for FB to offer larger pay for the small amount of positions they have there, and in this manner poach some of the best talent in Seattle, while for MSFT it would be prohibitively expensive to raise salaries across the board at Redmond.

That still doesn't change the big picture, which is that top tech pay is largely equivalent, outside of a few anomalies here and there.

"Overall, top tech pay about the same."

No, they do not. Again, obviously you have never worked at a FANG company otherwise you would probably realize this. It's quite a well known fact in the Valley that FB/Google pay much better than MSFT/AMZN.

You seem bitter for some reason. I wish you well.

FYI, I got offers from FANG companies, specifically the ones you mentioned. There used to be a gap, but on the last round the AMZN numbers were effectively the same as Google's. My guess is that over the last few years they faced the necessity to pay equally.

I have friends working at MSFT in the Bay and their current pay also falls in line with the numbers mentioned in this thread. Of course, they're senior engineers.

Your sample size of 1 or a couple does not refute my statement about not all top tech pay the same.

I think you are quite the bitter one trying to refute every single one of my comments.

Google pays the same pre-tax in Seattle as in the Bay Area, at Bay Area rates in each case. So it's also between companies even within the Seattle context.

(Or at least that's the official line. I haven't examined any de facto pre-tax pay disparities between the two locations. But at least they don't adjust comp when one transfers between those locations, or between either of them and NYC; whereas they do for relos those areas and significantly cheaper areas.)

Source: personal memories of policies from 3-5 years ago, which could have changed but probably haven't.

I didn't say median. I said it is L5-L6 comp, which doesn't make it a median as I assume most engineers will be in L1-L4 band. That said, it is not an outlier either. And won't be surprised is 20-30% of engineering and PM orgs are making that money.

Also, Uber and Airbnb gives RSUs which are not paper money. I am confident that an IPO for both these companies are inevitable.

RSU's in a company that hasn't gone public are not very liquid... not paper money, but definitely not worth face value. Take that value and cut it in half or 1/4.

You picked .5 or .25 as the multiplier. If it's still 2-5 years until a public offering, it's also quite possible for the multiplier to be closer to 1.5 or 2.

Everybody has a different assessment of how likely each outcome is, so everybody has a different expected value.

Still a lot better than stock options in a startup that isn't even close to liquidity.

Anecdotally, I know plenty of 66s and 67s at Microsoft that are pulling $300-500k in TC. Microsoft’s stock rise has also made this decade extremely nice for grants.

Course, with the average house going for $1 million in Kirkland, they have to spend it.

If you’re making $300k-$500k a year, a $1M house is extremely attainable.

Yes, but they need to spend the money of course.

Most of the employees are certainly making less, becomes pretty obvious with the http://levels.fyi salaries per level (only starts going above 400K after L6 @ Google & FB)