$40k is two months pay probably.

Edit: To be clear I didn’t say this to shame the OP. I said this to highlight that the company didn’t offer up much. I say this because I have been in a similar position in the past where their “generous” offer was two months severance (same ballpark) which imo was insulting. Didn’t sign it either and told them to F off.

How many month’s salary would the writer need to have lost before you unlock some praise?

I'd look at it a little differently. The 40k puts him on the hook for something. He (or someone who signs sn agreement like that) is in a position where something he says could be construed as violating the agreement and he could get taken to court, even if he's in the right. No agreement, nothing to worry about. Why take an immaterial amount of money to be personally liable for something. Getting to tell the story is a minor perk

I think this somewhat speaks to the pay gap present on this platform. From my position I'd happily accept a 40k payout if you wanted to contract me to never say the word "are" for two years. It's all a balance - if you have 20million sitting in the bank then 40k sounds like nothing, but 40k is a lot of money to most people - enough that they'd be happy to agree to some terms that won't significantly affect their lives just to take home the cash and get, lets say, two months of vacation budgeting (a conservative estimate) to enjoy.

40k is a lot of money.

I don't have 20 million sitting in the bank, but I still definitely wouldn't take that. 40k is definitely a lot to me, but if it's similar to an NDA, you have to assume that the legal and financial penalties if you mess up could be ruinous. And I'm almost definitely going to mess up and accidentally say the word "are".

The 40k isn't a gift, it's a payment in order to take on a liability. I'd have a lot more success not talking about why I was let go, as opposed to not saying the word "are", but I'd still have to weigh the consequences of messing up one drunken or tired evening.

I think the problem is that 40k is a lot of money to the average worker AND it's virtually nothing to the company.

It highlights just how out of control the wealth gap is becoming.

Well uh, the company also employs thousands of people who get more or less equally paid?

Taking a public company vs average employee as a wealth gap example is probably not showing what you want to show.

Maybe wealth gap isn't exactly what I should have highlighted. Instead we could say it shows the power corporations have to buy our basic rights away from us for a pittance.

I get what they are saying. The cost of a lawsuit for any perceived violation of this NDA would easily cost over $40k to fight or settle. If you're highly risk adverse it may actually make sense on a personal decision level to not sign any NDA's for any amount below instant retirement like 8 Figures. If you sign it will always be over your head for the rest of your life.

Yeah 40k would instantly solve all my immediate problems and set me on a path for life haha

One day I hope to see giving up 40 grand as a viable option

I'd miss:

1. International Speak Like a Pirate Day.

2. Passing by John Cook without an R-R-R-R me hearties!

What do pirates have inside their compilers?

IR, matey

Well some things take priority

Maybe you could have an accent.

Ahhh me mateys !

So two months, assuming 40 hour work week, ends up being a comment with 320 hours of integrity behind it. Still very impressive, thanks for bringing it to the time domain.

It’s hard to have integrity when you are hurting for money. I am glad the poster was doing okay and was able to stand up for what they believed in

Bro where are you working where the typical engineer is making 20k a month?

20k is 240k a year. That’s not an atypical base salary for someone fairly senior at a faang. Then there bonus which brings cash comp to around 290k.

Rsu is the largest part of comp for a senior person so more that half. So add another 300 k on top of that.

That’s a comp of close to 600k a year or 50k a month when averaged out.

The post specifically mentioned Twitter. That number is in line with the pay ranges mentioned in their job listings.

Most larger SV tech companies pay senior+ engineers that between RSUs and cash.

FAANG pays that to new grads. (500k stock over 4 years and 140k salary is pretty standard).

You are not receiving 40k a month liquid cash. That is my point. RSUs have a very, very long time before that worth is liquid. That was more my point.

Many companies vest those RSUs monthly or at least quarterly, and for public companies employees can sell right away. This is a very common paradigm, and in fact financial advisors would frequently recommend employees sell all shares at vest to diversify.

I've worked at places also where 105b-1 plans were generally available (sell all shares at vest even outside trading windows), in which case employees were absolutely receiving 40k+ liquid cash a month. Many senior engineers were receiving substantial more than that.

Some companies vest quarterly with no cliff, so you are going to vest within 3 months of starting.

Before the stock declines, an experienced engineer could get offers for 40k a month before taxes. I didn't believe it till I tried. It's real. Amazon frontloads in cash, Facebook has 3 month vesting.

The cost to the company is the same, one just has better retention properties.

The last 3 companies I worked RSUs vested either quarterly or monthly and were then immediately liquid.

This always reads so unreal to me to hear about such a high pay.

I mean, I just joined joined a new job two months ago in a full remote position for 50k Eur/year, working in France. It's already almost 10k more than my previous job.

I read that the median annual wage in 2021 in the US was $45,760. In France, it was 22,184 euros in 2018.

So I guess, $40k is a joke for some, but would make a large difference for most people out there.

It is common practice for companies to offer this if they have something to hide.

its common practice in general to offer anywhere between 2-4 months for redundancies, the non-disparagment clauses are tacked on to make sure you can't grind an axe with your now ex-employer

You limited it to redundancies. I didn't.

I have seen it tried in a situation where a manager called an employee a racial slur. The employee sued and the company settled. Too bad for the company the employee had an email where the racial slur was used. You may not hear about it because it is kept hush hush in Silicon Valley.

Something similar happened to me. A manager said that a certain gender wasn't liked around here. When they laid me off, they gave me an unusually generous package and asked for a signature.

It is pretty common practice for companies to offer this for layoffs, period.

The discussion can start from the point of view of wanting the laid off employees to have a soft landing, and the lawyers push for especially non-disparagement and tightening up NDA.

I didn't limit it to layoffs. You did.

Fair enough, but it is also standard practice in any settlement.

Easy to say, but forgive me if I'm skeptical.

That's an option I definitely considered, even discussed. But for reasons I mentioned elsewhere I decided to not sign, and have instead since mainly worked for non-for-profits at lower rates. So if we can count the salary difference as giving to charity, I've already given far more than that.

Agreed. That is a power move par excellence.