by zedpm on 2/7/22, 3:47 PM with 445 comments
by lhorie on 2/7/22, 5:58 PM
With this said, from reading the article, this move seems reminiscent of Netflix's pay structure, in the sense of offering a higher cash portion but lower equity. Some people here already mentioned that this was already sort of the case with a sign on bonus compensating for the backloaded vesting structure. From my experience interacting w/ professionals outside the FANG bubble, equity tends to be a bit confusing, so I wonder if a move towards bigger cash portions is a way to try to lure people who wouldn't otherwise be looking at big tech as a prospective career choice.
What's also curious to me is that bumping up cash comp is in direct opposition to the trends from some other tech giants, where they are frontloading equity vesting. My sample size might just be small, but it feels like cash comp seems to correlate somewhat with bearish stock feeling and that frontloaded equity tends to correlate w/ bullish stock feeling. Would love to hear whether I'm off the mark here or not.
by PragmaticPulp on 2/7/22, 4:09 PM
OTOH, the backloaded vesting system works. It was easy to hire people out of their first year at Amazon, but almost impossible to hire someone after a few years when the bulk of their vesting was right around the corner. I talked to a lot of people who admitted being miserable but felt they couldn’t leave until they got the equity that they had been toiling over for the past few years.
Weird situation all around. We eventually reduced our recruiting out of that particular Amazon office because so many of the people coming out of it were deeply disgruntled with the tech industry in general. Really changed my view of Amazon.
by gregdoesit on 2/7/22, 6:06 PM
At the same time, Amazon has had to pay very high for new hires. Hiring managers used to need to get L10 approval to go out of bands on offers outside bands, but starting late 2021, they could go out of bands up to ~20% higher with no approvals.
To top all of this, Amazon has a 6% internal URA (non-regretted attrition) target: something that has been in place for close to a decade. The Amazon Music group revolted late 2021 as reported by the Big Technology publication in-depth [1] as they didn't have 6% of people to fire, at the very time when they could not hire. Yet they were forced to hit this URA target, just like all other orgs in Amazon. Apparently this “rebellion email” leaked across the company and is sparking Amazon-wide outrage, and adds fuel to the fire.
Amazon has been extremely frugal for the skillset they hire for, very demanding and have created a stressful workplace. They still force 6% of engineers to be fired, even when their own leadership opposes this (Amazon Music).
I wonder why they can’t hire. Also, why is Amazon still part of the FANG abbreviation when they have this culture across many of their organisations?
[1] https://bigtechnology.substack.com/?utm_source=substack&utm_...
by darknavi on 2/7/22, 4:53 PM
> The move promises to bring Amazon’s base pay more in line with other big tech companies, including Google, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft.
As a ~62/63 (almost senior or senior) at Microsoft my peers at Facebook, Google, and Amazon can easily make literally twice as much compensation a year in salary, stock, and cash bonuses.
Microsoft isn't even in the ballpark. If I didn't absolutely love my job there would be zero reason to stay at Microsoft.
by Mountain_Skies on 2/7/22, 4:53 PM
Seems like Amazon was blown through most of the labor supply and now can't find workers, not because they don't exist but because they don't want to work for Amazon. Doubt more money is going to fix this though perhaps pushing for more visas will let them get some workers who haven't been burnt by Amazon yet. Amazon simply has a bad culture which must be fixed. Even then, it'll take time to repair their reputation.
by banana-19 on 2/7/22, 8:16 PM
- Joined early early 2017 as an L5 hire (no previous FANG experience, but 10+ elsewhere) with an an offer of base $145K, sign on of $50K year 1, $38K year 2, 150 RSUs (AMZN worth ~$850 = 127500). Vesting schedule: 5% @ 1y, 15% @ 2y, 20% @ 2.5y, 20% @ 3y, 20% @ 3.5y, 20% @ 4y.
- Negotiated without competing offers a bump to $150K base, $60K / $45K cash, 162 RSUs.
- A breakdown based on Amazon's 15% stock aprecciation YOY gives you Amazon's Total Compensation Target. This is Amazon's projection assuming that you perform at the middle of the expectation of your cohort in the yearly performance review (OLR, not forte as the article states)
- year 1 (8 RSUs): $150K base + $60K cash + 8 * $850 * 1.15 = $218K
- year 2 (24 RSUs): $150K base + $46K cash + 24 * $850 * 1.15^2 = $223K
- year 3 (32 + 33 RSUs): $150K base + (32 * $850 * 1.15^2.5) + (33 * $850 * 1.15^3) = $231K
- year 4 (32 + 33 RSUs): $150K base + (32 * $850 * 1.15^3.5) + (33 * $850 * 1.15^4) = $243K
- year 1 (AMZN @ $1430) = $221K. OLR bumped base salary for next year to $157K
- year 2 (AMZN @ $1844) = $247K. OLR bumped base salary for next year to $160K. No stock grant as projected salary > comp target
- year 3 (AMZN @ $1767, $2307) = $292K. Granted 18 RSUs to vest at year 4.5 and year 5
- year 4 (AMZN @ $3338, $3379) = $378K
- year 5 (AMZN @ $3409, $3400?) = $221K
- due to manager / life reasons, didn't progress beyond L5. If I were to pursue this this year, my comp adjustment would have come about a year after starting at that level (but only to the lower end of the L6 band ~ $250K). $30K for a tonne more work seems rather stupid.
- note the golden handcuffs as well as that huge cliff
- some of the above is intentionally inaccurate (but not by a huge amount)by _trackno5 on 2/7/22, 5:21 PM
by xiphias2 on 2/7/22, 4:40 PM
by jl2718 on 2/7/22, 6:43 PM
by stephenboyd on 2/7/22, 5:16 PM
by newobj on 2/7/22, 7:11 PM
by obert on 2/7/22, 6:15 PM
by caaqil on 2/7/22, 4:29 PM
by _dain_ on 2/7/22, 5:01 PM
by amotinga on 2/7/22, 7:01 PM
1. very difficult long interview that I most likely won't pass 2. I only want to work remotely. driving every day few hours back and forth is very expensive in many ways.
When something changes about those I will think about it.
by mathattack on 2/7/22, 6:12 PM
by wiskinator on 2/7/22, 5:28 PM
by ukFxqnLa2sBSBf6 on 2/7/22, 7:32 PM
by etempleton on 2/7/22, 6:52 PM
Understandably, skilled vs unskilled labor, and supply and demand, and all that, but as Jon Stewart recently recounted telling Jeff Bezos at a dinner party, “sounds like a recipe for a revolution.”
by belval on 2/7/22, 9:09 PM
To give people here an idea, my RSUs lost ~4% in value since I've been at Amazon (more than a year). This is perfectly fine if there's an expectation that the RSUs are a "bonus", it's not fine if you need it to go up 10-15% for your TC to match Microsoft.
by MuffinFlavored on 2/7/22, 6:54 PM
Why do US engineers command such higher salaries?
by paulvs on 2/7/22, 4:58 PM
by amf12 on 2/7/22, 5:11 PM
by dymk on 2/7/22, 5:05 PM
So while this might indeed result in pay bumps, I highly doubt the bumps will be very large. This is also a "simplify how we do offers" thing.
by NovemberWhiskey on 2/7/22, 6:28 PM
by davidw on 2/7/22, 5:16 PM
by internetting3 on 2/7/22, 9:37 PM
by stjohnswarts on 2/7/22, 9:07 PM
by OnionBlender on 2/7/22, 6:40 PM
by nojito on 2/7/22, 9:34 PM
Your take home will easily exceed $1m which will help you gain a nice bump if you choose to move elsewhere in 18 months or so.
by DaveExeter on 2/7/22, 7:34 PM
by wdb on 2/7/22, 5:54 PM
by ngcazz on 2/7/22, 5:40 PM
by deltaonefour on 2/7/22, 7:48 PM
Does ANYONE in amazon see culture changes occurring at all? I'm willing to respond to the 5 recruiters contacting me BUT only if there is a huge drive to change culture as well.
by sydthrowaway on 2/7/22, 5:34 PM
Doesn't really make much difference, unless you were hiring finance bros. The total comp is what mattered.
by yoelo on 2/7/22, 7:22 PM
by faangiq on 2/7/22, 5:32 PM
by jdlyga on 2/7/22, 5:55 PM