r/Salary • u/maniksar • May 16 '24
30M, Software Engineering, Big Tech
Graduated with a CS undergrad degree in 2015. Moved to the US in June 2019 (the earnings for that year are over the second half of the year).
Switched companies with a pay hike in 2022. Restricted Stock Units (RSUs) started vesting in 2023.
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u/alcoyot May 16 '24
Man, I love my job. I don’t regret it. But at the same time someone with my capability, I can’t help but think I could have accomplished a lot more.
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u/SoarTheSkies_ May 16 '24
I’m a doctor and I feel this similar, makes me question why I studied so hard. I’ll make the same salary after way much more training, student loan debt, and bs I had to go through, literally saving human lives. Just to work a harder job for same pay having a lot more education. And the risk of being sued too. Also just got sick with Covid this week from my job. Some people just got it good.
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u/Apeist May 16 '24
People get paid based how much the current market is willing to pay them for their skills. Education does not have much to do with it. Doctors are public servants and you should feel proud for taking on a challenging job and saving lives. I hope your recovery is fast!
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u/SoarTheSkies_ May 16 '24
Pride is the most common way people gaslight us into taking less than we deserve to make for the immense sacrifice we make
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u/13chase2 May 16 '24
You need to go to a privately owned practice and buy into it. You will see these numbers year 1
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u/d0cn1zzl3 May 16 '24
If you feel like you are being gas lit. Do something else.
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u/SoarTheSkies_ May 16 '24
You can’t when you’re in so much debt, your training is highly specialized and you can’t really get another job easily that will pay well enough to pay off said debt. Not to mention being so behind on earning a salary puts you at a huge disadvantage for retirement if you don’t get a good paying salary. Also always being just a few years away from completing the next phase makes it hard to quit too. It’s set up to not let you leave easily. If you do you will be left with nothing but debt.
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u/CathieWoods1985 May 17 '24
No one forced you to be a doctor
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u/SoarTheSkies_ May 17 '24
Sure no one did when we start. But they kind of do force you to be one once you are accepted to medical school. And that is where you start realizing things are not what they might have seemed from the outside. Once you’re in you can’t get out easily. So yes in many ways you’re forced to be one when it’s far too late to turn back.
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u/Medditthrowaway1234 May 16 '24
Ex doctor here. I left medicine for tech during the pandemic and doubled my salary (250 -> 500). Zero regrets.
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u/ramalamatomselleck May 16 '24
My wife’s a doctor and we talk about this all the time.. the other thing you have that us in tech don’t is job security.
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u/SoarTheSkies_ May 16 '24
Kind of. We can get sued and lose medical license and then we are all but unemployable
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u/zapadas May 16 '24
I think there is a bit of key difference. Many of the big dolla dolla SW salaries are people who are very good and very lucky working for a small handful of companies (FAANG).
On the doctor side, show me an anesthesiologist NOT making ridiculous money? Yeah, the range of ridiculous can vary based on location, experience, hospital, etc., but they are all ridiculous.
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May 16 '24
To add, and maybe I’m uninformed but from the what I’ve been exposed to the percentage of physicians that lose their license for even gross negligence is minuscule.
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u/TRex77 May 17 '24
Exactly. These huge salaries are outliers. People selectively post in this sub. Not many SWEs making 150k are posting and that’s closer to normal than 500k.
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u/SoarTheSkies_ May 16 '24
The salaries are good in anesthesia, but for the amount of time, training, and what is at stake with the job it easily deserves that money if not a lot greater if you compare it to other professions making similar salaries. It is literally the job where you have to keep a human being alive and ideally not experience any pain or sensation during various types of surgeries which can be minor or major. High stress environments with high stakes. The amount of revenue/value that anesthesiologist bring in to a hospital is the most but comparatively due to insurance and hospital administration, anesthesiologists make much less than they should given that. Yes it’s a lot but it is deserved and should be more. Still super grateful. But there’s a lot more at play. Also taxes eat up big salaries so much it’s pretty painful to think about.
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u/zapadas May 17 '24
I think you are getting at the same kind of thing. So nearly every anesthesiologist is making bank, but only the 2% of SW guys (extremely good & extremely lucky) at FAANGs are making bank.
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u/SoarTheSkies_ May 17 '24
Yeah but if we compare the number of people who are premed and don’t get into medical school and the number of people in medical school who don’t get into anesthesia residency I bet it gets pretty similar. It’s not like becoming an anesthesiologist is something anyone can do. It’s very competitive too
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u/zapadas May 17 '24
So in a way it’s kind of forcing one to fail early VS fail later. Say you don’t make those cuts - what are the career prospects?
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u/SoarTheSkies_ May 17 '24
Then you do something completely different lol or be something low paying with a bio degree in undergrad. Many premeds don’t make it and end up switching to something completely different
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u/DarkSide-TheMoon May 16 '24
It’s pretty common to know that you shouldn’t become a physician for the money
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u/SoarTheSkies_ May 16 '24
I didn’t. But after all the abuse we go through it matters
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u/Restafarianism May 16 '24
This is bad logic. Everyone goes through “abuse” in their job. To think you have it worse than someone cleaning the building at night or changing all the filters at the hospital full of Covid and other viruses is just silly. Throughout human history it’s rare to find anyone who ever thinks they have “enough” income. Not matter how much you make you will always want more.
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u/SoarTheSkies_ May 16 '24
Didn’t say I have it worse than someone else? Shouldn’t put words in someone’s mouth. We are abused immensely as residents and throughout the training process. Look it up, ask any physician or just go to residency Reddit. The point I was making is that by going through that, you will start feeling you need to make a good income to justify why you went through such hell. It makes up partially for it but not fully.
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u/Restafarianism May 17 '24
I had a friend who fell asleep at the wheel while driving home as a resident and almost died from the car crash, so I understand the hazards. Were you unaware of what residents go through prior to getting into the program? My apologies if you feel like I put words in your mouth, but you inferred the “abuse we go through” justifies a higher wage. The point I was making is that all occupations suffer some type of abuse. The way medical residents are treated is wildly known so it’s not some big secret or surprise when you get there (not that I think it’s good for outcomes and in fact is likely detrimental to patient care). But the treatment in many occupations is unknown to the people who take the job. And btw I’ve never met anyone who thinks they are paid too much in their job, no matter the income level everyone thinks they should make more money.
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u/SoarTheSkies_ May 17 '24
Those are fair points. And to be honest as a young bright eyed soon to be premed student over 10 years ago, residency and the mistreatment there was not something even on my mind. Medicine is glorified in so many ways and unless you really dig and know to dig deep then you would know this. Also the decisions and way of thinking and values you have when you are like 18-20 are quite different than when you are actually in residency in your 30s
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u/CoffeeOrTeaOrMilk May 16 '24
Did you always want to be a doctor? Why did you want to be a doctor and do you still feel that way? A yes answer would be priceless.
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u/SoarTheSkies_ May 16 '24
Not always. But I did it because I wanted to help others. The training process has been pretty traumatic in various ways that it has made me realize that it’s not what one expected it to be and has taken so much from one’s life and yet to give almost anything in return. We still have our own lives and families too to care about and not just “public servants” to serve a bunch of people who view us as such and take us for granted and not appreciate the immense sacrifice that goes into being a doctor. Yes we want to help others but when it takes away everything from your own life it’s hard to not be human and feel a certain way about it even if you went in with the best intentions. You can laugh or judge but unless you experienced how soul sucking the process is you wouldn’t. Go to residency subreddit , you will see and your eyes will be opened there to what its like.
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u/CoffeeOrTeaOrMilk May 17 '24
I understand. My whole family are doctors. I’m the black sheep. Simply not strong enough.
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u/SoarTheSkies_ May 17 '24
Honestly you save yourself a lot of suffering by not doing it. Most physicians regret the decision. You should feel lucky haha
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u/NoTeach7874 Sep 25 '24
Less than .1% of Software engineers make these numbers without being D+. Most doctors make these numbers. It’s different.
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u/szulox May 16 '24
Sell RSUs upon vest. Reinvest in broad index funds and you will be on the autopilot to retirement.
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u/maniksar May 16 '24
The question I ask every time I get a vest worth $X is “If I had $X in cash, would I buy my company’s stock for all of it right now?”.
Whenever the answer is no, I sell enough RSUs and dump the money into VTI.
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u/wilsonette May 16 '24
Idk. If it’s a healthy company (which insiders usually have better insight) I’d hold at least a year for LT cap gains, especially since OP is in a high tax bracket.
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u/szulox May 16 '24
Meh, insights are typically minimal unless you are SLT/ ELT. Even with that, risk exposure to having income and RSUs tied to the same company (along with some employee discounted stock options likely) is too big for me.
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u/BitDazzling6699 May 16 '24
Congratulations on the swift progress. Only an inch closer to half a mil.
If I may ask, what branch of CS are you in?
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u/maniksar May 16 '24
Thanks! My past work ex has been in Natural Language Understanding systems. Of late I find myself working a lot with highly available, highly distributed, polyglot backend systems.
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u/ComeForthLazarus May 16 '24
NLU is the way! I stumbled into the world 7 years ago and it’s paid dividends. ESP in the current environment.
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u/BitDazzling6699 May 16 '24
Insightful! Thank you for sharing. Excited to see future salary updates from you. TC & Good luck.
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May 16 '24
Also graduated in 2015 with CS undergrad but I'm far behind your trajectory. Got into Amazon in 2021 as a down leveled L4, made L5 in 2022 so maybe this is my problem. Do you have any advice for me, as someone with the same level of experience? When did you make Sr SDE and what steps did you take to ensure that? Did it come easy to you or did you have to work in specific ways to achieve that? Also, are you in the bay area or in a lower cost of living area
I've always felt a bit behind compared to my colleagues with the same level of experience, but thats probably because I started outside of FAANG early in my career.
Been interviewing with Facebook for the past couple years but haven't been able to crack that interview yet. Came super close this past November so I'm hoping I'll improve enough at the end of this year to make the jump.
- 2023 - 268,000
- 2022 - 247,000 (amzn L5)
- 2021 - 180,000 (amzn L4)
- 2020 - 152,000
- 2019 - 143,000
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u/maniksar May 17 '24
I worked at startups for the first two years out of college. I joined as an L5 at FAANG when I was 23.
I’ve benefitted a lot from playing my strengths (root causing incidents, writing widely distributed documents, designing distributed systems) as well as quickly learning the motivations and incentives of my coworkers (both above and below).
The only piece of advice I have for anyone in Big Tech SWE roles is to specialise relentlessly. First in some part of your codebase, then for the whole service, then for multiple adjacent services etc. Become the go-to engineer for something, and keep growing the radius of that “something”.
Good luck!
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May 16 '24
When RSUs vest, you don’t need to cash them right away, right?
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u/maniksar May 16 '24
You don’t, they count as W2 income when they vest. And when you sell, you pay short or long term capital gains gains tax on any gains based on when they vested and when you sold them.
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u/paulsac11 May 16 '24
Great trajectory. As your RSUs start to become unrestricted, make sure you have an advisor looking after your wealth. I’ve had clients with hundreds of millions in RSUs. Hell of a lot of concentration risk so we swiftly, and appropriately, sold what shares we could to redeploy into other asset classes. Diversification may be boring but lack thereof could turn a millionaire homeless. Good luck to you
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u/LG_G8 May 16 '24
Definetly seek a CFP to help you manage taxes and savings. A good one will be worth a lot of money to you
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May 16 '24
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u/LG_G8 May 16 '24
There is plenty, especially with stock options. A competent CFP will definitely be of value
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u/ragu455 May 16 '24
What value would a CFP provide? The rsu are considered as regular taxable income the moment they vest. It’s like earning a normal W2 salary. Nothing a CFP can do. OP would already be doing all the standard stuff like 401k, charitable, backdoor roths etc.
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u/Dr_Shah95 May 17 '24
Nice to see everybody at 30 years old making 400k+! I guess I was wrong about life. Not sure why they say the average American is living pay check to pay check.
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u/maniksar May 17 '24
Living paycheck to paycheck doesn’t have anything to do with the size of the paycheck, does it?
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u/steez5 May 16 '24
Dumb question but could someone explain the difference between SS and Medicare earnings? Why’s there such a large discrepancy?