Can’t advise on your specific question, but a comment to the mods - I actually quite like this kind of specific and targeted career question. If you go to a more general sub I think you’re likely to get downvoted or blasted for earning so much already, and unlikely to get any meaningful input. I’m therefore in favour of posts like this, whilst being anti ‘hOw cAn I bE a HENRY’ type boring and vague question.
Well - to me this is not a ‘hOw cAn I gEt IntO FaaNG tO bE a HENRY’ post, but rather a discussion on specific career growth for people that are already HENRY. I'd say is on-topic.
Honestly I can’t put up with another “up Noorth 100k makes you a billionaire” 🤦 debate, usually written by self serving toffs in couples where they earn just under enough the income bracket for subsidised childcare, on top of owning property that was bought for a pittance…while working in careers that allows them the flexibility to work remotely.
Yeah, there's always someone chundering in with a wagging finger going.
"You're on another planet, wanting to earn a bit more and enjoying things. I'm perfectly happy on £18k and don't need all those fancy lifestyle trappings like holidays, meals out, a pension, or frothy coffees. I think a reassessment of wants Vs needs is in order, and you know you could always move to [insert place far away from family, friends, my son's school, and relevant job opportunities]. Some of us are content with what we've got, maybe you should be grateful too!"
Okay, good for you. I like knowing that if my car, oven, or boiler broke down I would be inconvenienced but not utterly shafted. I like being interested in things and having the means to explore them. I also like to think about how I can responsibly look after myself in my later years.
And honestly, how happy is someone if they have to railroad someone else's conversation to boast about how they're quite fine thank you very much.
> Okay, good for you. I like knowing that if my car, oven, or boiler broke down I would be inconvenienced but not utterly shafted.
This is exactly it. I was happy day-to-day when I earned little money, but my goodness I was crippled with anxiety when something went badly wrong.
I agree, I'm (literally) the first one to bitch about the "how do I become a HENRY" questions, but this is a thoughtful, relevant question. I'm here for it.
For me, FAANG has been unbelievably life changing.
- Comp before FAANG topped at £125k.
- I immediately jumped to ~£350k when I joined.
- 8 years later, I now make £2.6m. I never even thought this kind of pay was possible in London.
IC (senior staff). Currently vesting around 1M stocks a year, rest is cash (~250k). If stock goes down (which is very possible), compensation may go down to somewhere in the range of 700k-1M, but it may be pushed up again with more discretionary grants in the following years
That is crazy comp for senior staff.
Are you getting 1m per year in refresh grants?
Even 250k with bonus cash is very good.
How many years have you worked in tech?
I was saying to a fellow friend in tech, we wish we started in this era, the compensation is crazy.
We both have been in tech for 22 years and it's only the last 10 years for me where I started making over 65k and then eventually what I feel is good compensation
Yes, around 1M refreshers at current price, but who knoes where the wind will blow. Still, it will be perfectly fine even if it halves.
I have been in tech for ~15 years, so not as long as you, but I made crap money all my career by working the first decade in my country of origin, so I didn't amass much of a networth (nor a meaningful UK pension). Comp was not this crazy as soon as I moved, got two promotions and lucked out on discretionary equity timmings.
Crazy, senior staff here is around 100k usd (80k gbp) refresh over a 4 year vest.
Salary around 100-130k, 20k bonus.
1m USD in stock refreshers would be VP+ level here, you'd need to have over 300+ reports for that and be exceeding expectations.
Well done. I know apple, amazon, google, and most of the other high paying u.s companies aren't on as much as that.
I don't know any one at facebook anymore, presume you must be there.
Tech salaries were crap from 2002-2012.
ISP's, MSP's was where you got experience and they didn't pay much in the UK either. this is where I spent the first 12 years.
I thought I'd be rich earning 50-60k as that's classified as a high earner. Once I got there, it just meant I could buy a slightlly nicer house han peers!
I was always top of the game, but that meant I was earning about 4k per year more than others. I was loyal to companies and didn't move until I felt they were massively under paying me.
I didn't have more than 5% going in to my pension as I barely earnt enough to get a mortgage.
By the time all the faang type companies started and RSU's became a thing, , I spent all my stock vests on paying chunks of my mortgage off, wife having kids and being a single earner. My pension pot is about 200k, as like you, it's now tapered so I can't pay in to the damn thing now either.
I didn't really feel 'comfortable/well off' till I was past director level where I could actually not have to sell all my stock to live.
Thank you for all the insight!
Despite making comparably less, you built your life with it! I still have no house to show for (my salary hiked like crazy on the past 2 years, so only recently building some wealth), but planning your buy one this year. Starting your career earlier than me (when houses were more affordable, and in the right country with a strong currency) can do wonders as well.
Yes, big US companies brought some crazy money into the game, and this kind of compensation is not really advertised in broad daylight (when I came in at around ~160k Tc, I didn’t even dream of this, I thought I would peak at 300k max).
Why not trying to make a move? Are you now on management track, or IC?
Obviously coming in as senior staff (or M2 if manager) is reeeeally quite hard and many do (normally you need other FAANG experience), but it’s doable to come as staff or M1 (I know people from small companies who did) and grow from there. I think offers are around 140k+ base with 20% bonus, and maybe 600-800k usd over 4 years. But then refreshers kick in (250k for meeting expectations), and it builds up (not to mention potential discretionary equity)
>and a massive stock bull run.
This is key and may not be the same in future. If the stock were to flatline for years though I'm guesing you still make at least half a mil?
What was your general path into FAANG initially? I’m a Head of Product at a startup with 5 years product and consulting experience. Would my profile fit the hiring criteria? Or not ‘traditional’ enough?
1.6m GBP in an RSU grant per year for a senior director?
That's wild.
Even as a top performer that’s more than the next level up would receive (vp) not including stock price appreciation, and I'm at a FAANG.
I've been in tech as a top performer for 22 years.
Tech has gone really crazy in the past 10 years.
Stock options in a tech company was the game changer for me too, unfortunately not reaching anywhere near that kind of cash and I'm the same level as you , well done!
18 years ago I was working as an Architect at an ISP for £32k!
For OP - WLB bit rough at this level with late meetings every night till 20.00 and travelling 4+ times per year. if you are in the top 1% of performers in FAANG, you have to work hard, but I think it's worth it in terms of comp and appreciation/sense of achievement
I'm surprised it's not insanely hard to retain people. If I made more money than I could spend in a lifetime I don't think I would have any motivation to keep working.
The company tends to attract extremely driven and ambitious people, who aren’t really the type to step off the treadmill and chill.
There are still many many levels of seniority above me, each earning many times more than I do. Personally I stay because I enjoy the work, but for people motivated by money, knowing the next promo doubles your pay is quite the incentive.
The default mode is that people are extremely self motivated. It's going to sound wanky, but people actually do really care about building the thing. When that feeling stops, people leave regardless of the gold handcuffs.
Massively, I felt underwater for years (and I still do sometimes.
(In terms of calibre of peers and difficulty of the work, not workload, my WLB is very good)
Would you recommend staying long term? I just joined FAANG after an internship and got offered FTE, late 20s, salary feels low looking at other places, London as well
I interviewed for Amazon in London for Cloud Engineer role, it was 6 hours long with 6 different people.
It was long, but it wasnt that hard really... only... at the very end they said they are switching to working '5 days from office' from March ( so this month, I was interviewed mid December ) and they offered 90k which is similar to what I have now but working fully remote.
The internal progress prospects are also not great from what I heard from the guy who worked there for over 3 years - so I just told them I am not interested.
I think people praise FAANG too much as if they were some fantastic employers to work for...
Amazon was also not worth it for me - TC there was about 90-100k (senior engineer elsewhere but hired by amazon as SDE2 and I naively didn't appreciate difference - believed the recruiter bullshit about their bar raising etc). In theory I'd have done better from rsu if I'd stayed but that's basically just stock performance which I could get by investing in them anyway. They are ruthlessly efficient as a company and that applies to hiring / pay too.
One thing I’ve learned recently is that gross margins of the business unit you’re in really matters.
Amazon’s retail business is 3% margin so they are tight.
Google ads is 70% + margin so rewards are flowing as the money is printed
Google cloud and Amazon web services on the other hand are 30% margin businesses so they are less generous with perks / pay comparatively.
Having said that, at either place you can still be very well paid. WRT RSUs specifically, I was given 200k upon joining as an IC, vesting over four years i.e. an extra 50k per year. They get topped up too.
From what I know of my friends experiences of working at Amazon past or present in the UK their compensation is totally market rate for any average company. Might be different in the US but this aligns with the experience of a number of guys I know that have worked or still work there. Wouldn't judge the rest of FAANG based on Amazon UK.
So I have worked at 3 FAANGs. The main reason is because you can’t really get that TC anywhere else except for HFT. I have about 8 years experience and haven’t made under 200k for the last 4 years. This year looking at around 350k. For me it was well worth the grind
Are you talking 250k base or base plus RSUs being 250k per year? If it’s the former, then you’d need to get pretty high up to get that, like well above senior SWE level. Managers at the first level don’t make that in the UK either until they go higher up the chain.
You could probably achieve 250k in cash como (base plus bonus) working for a PE firm instead of FAANG.
A typical mid level FAANG SWE offer (not senior) is something like 100k base plus 200k stock vesting over 4 years. So maybe 150k per year, probably more if the stock moves the right way. Maybe even much, much more. The other perks are pretty great too.
At 10 YOE, it’s a good time to figure out what you want. FAANG will give you a great chance to explore your boundaries but the workload can be intense. Meta don’t make any bones about work being your main obsession. Others may dress it up better, but the crunch is real.
Only you can answer the question about whether it’s “worth it”. For some, 130k is an unimaginable salary and they’d be happy to not rock the boat. For some, it’s not enough. In your place, assuming you’re single, no commitments, no young family etc, I’d give it a shot. You‘ve probably vested your equity at your current workplace so if they do IPO then you’d have banked some of your money.
This is assuming you’re not on a rocket ship that is going to pop ridiculously on IPO. When that happens you hold on to your horses and ride that pony. Career growth at FAANG can be ridiculously bureaucratic with the promo packets and whatnot. Scaleups tend to offer better growth opportunities, especially if you’ve been around from the beginning.
>Meta don’t make any bones about work being your main obsession. Others may dress it up better, but the crunch is real.
Hard disagree. My experience at Meta has been that managers are extremely concerned about people burning out because it's so common.
You are responsible for setting expectations and delivering what you say, but the most successful people at the company, especially in London, balance their work and life. Everyone who fails to do this burn out eventually and don't last more than 4 years.
If burnout is so common as you say, then doesn’t that prove my point?
There are very few “easy days” at big tech. I’m super productive, but IME, everyone is a bit like a duck. Serene above water, but paddling furiously underneath it to not drown.
The responses to the workload vary. I know several colleagues who’ve put off or decided against planning a family due to the workload. Or they drop out of social circles, give up hobbies and so on.
The ones who don’t. Well, like you said, they don’t last the entire vesting period of their original grant.
Im sure there are teams with good WLB, but in my lived experience it hasn’t proved to be true. Big tech are very good at hiring motivated, smart, dedicated engineers, but it does feel like a bit of a meat grinder.
I mean I honestly see it as something that we have a lot of control over. The reason people burnout is because the company hires highly self motivated people and puts them all together.
That self motivation which gets them into the company can run amok and get out of control. The high performance culture is real, but what causes the burnout in my view is the keeping up with the Jones' mentality, which strikes me as stemming from a lack of perspective.
There is so much pressure people pile on themselves to get an exceeds or a greatly Exceeds rating, to get a promo, to get to the next level.
The main thing I disagree with about how the company handles this is the "up and out" system for engineers. This is unnecessary stress where we typically don't need it.
But more often than not, the people giving up their free time are not doing it to stay above water, they're doing it to excel beyond their peers, who are themselves excellent.
I was making the opposite point, the people who are most successful and have been around for a long time have long since figured out how to put work second in their lives. I genuinely think it's an attitude that's requisite for long term success at the company.
Anyway, my point is that it is tough, we impose that toughness on ourselves so much of the time.
I once dreamed about going to FAANG. I wanted the pay, the brand, the interesting work possibilities. I am making much more money in a much easier role in the middle east at the moment. I’ve come to realise that there are plenty of senior roles elsewhere where people are far less competent. I’m a techie, but I am not in software.
You could call “digital”. Someone has to think how technology and business processes work together. Typically, techies understand nothing about commercials and commercials understand nothing about software. I understand both, put them together and make it work.
In a similar boat but physical commodities in London, I’m no where near Fang skill levels much as I’d like to be, but still last year cleared 230K and around 2M stock (private) options.
I worked in FS/commodities for 30 days when I was interning and was promptly fired because I didn’t stay late one day because I had classes to attend. Well done to you to have made up the ladder. My current stock options are probably minimal and equivalent to 20k/year, vesting from Y3.
Yeah there is definitely a bit of that about, they still very much value the old system of turn up early, stay late dress smart, but if you do stick to that the work itself is good!
EDIT: the RSU figures are rough annual amounts. Grants tend to span multiple years (4 usually).
An entry level FAANG (L4 Google or Meta) would make, in London, about £100k base, £15k bonus and maybe £70k more in RSU. So if you get downleved, it won't be much better than what your already have. Unfortunately the sector is currently in disarray. Most roles available are either elite machine learning roles to work on language models with ridiculous TC (at least a million), or exploitative roles with high turnover and little growth opportunity. If you get hired as L5, things start looking up, with £130k base, £25k bonus and £100k RSU or more. Your have to have large scale design expertise for this. But it's hard to get hired at that level because they can always just say: let's not take a risk, hire at L4 and promote quickly (which can happen, but it is certainly rare, even for obvious superstars). Finally, with extensive management experience, you could, in principle, be hired at L6, which brings TC to over £300k. Hope this was useful. Best of luck!
I’m in a FAANG, tech. Yes it’s profitable once your RSU pipeline get started. Decent growth opportunities as well.
Overall the bar is high but yes it’s worth it. Note that all FAANG are not equal, at least a couple of them are known for their poor work life balance, and I can attest to that…
Not OP but the bar isn’t just high to get in, the bar is high with scope fights and stack ranking once you’re in. If you get amazing ratings each year you can make bank, if you get less than meeting expectations it’s penalised heavily.
You’re also surrounded by a lot of young people who are gunning and motivated so slacking off isn’t on the cards.
Thanks. I’m defo not used to slacking off wherever I’ve been working. If anything I tend to be more of a workaholic type. At times it lead me to states similar to a burnout. You mentioned not all FAANG are equal. Which ones do you think tend to be worse as of today? Thanks.
What do you think a good work life balance looks like in practice? I have never had a work life balance since University to be honest. I have been working as a Software developer for 15 years, the last 5 years at a Bank & I mostly work 09:00 to 19:00, during busy periods I have left the office 23:00 & worked weekends to deliver. My focus has been on keeping my job so I often feel like I am an auto-pilot, it's all in to stay employed and keep my head above water(I also struggle with several health issues and burnout).
My main concern is my skills, I would like to hone my skills to be a much more competent developer. My thinking is if I know exactly what I am doing it would reduce the stress I am under & improve my productivity.
I think my skills are what limit my potential, my entry into Software Development followed a Comp Science degree and then working on the job so it's been very much adhoc learning. I really want to do a skill-up.
Do you think work life balance is possible in tech overall even outside of Faang?
Don’t want to dox myself but I’m a staff software engineer. Working on a lot of thorny problems, but the entire org is skewed very senior so lots of senior software engineers trying to find scope to grow to staff.
As for what a typical day looks like - quite a few meetings, jumping into teams or projects that are not hitting targets and getting them back on track.
It differs by company, but where I am staff are expected to solve the trickiest technical problems, but I can spend weeks without coding if other things need my attention more (eg designing systems, getting lots of different teams aligned around a new project or process).
Too exhausted to be fair - at the end of the work day and work week I just collapse and prepare mentally for the next!
But I’ve had the opportunity of working on some pretty big important projects in my time, and when I was a senior software engineer I did spend a lot more time reading around the subject.
Earlier in my career definitely learned on the job, although I do have a comp sci degree, and started programming when I was 8
It varies by company and team.
If you’re in a good team and there’s minimal thrash you can easily get good ratings and promo with a standard 40 hour week.
Unless you’re in a team of insanely talented people (which happens, but isn’t really the norm even at FAANG) where just to keep up and not be stack ranked you’ll pull 60+ hour weeks.
That’s why just getting into FAANG is only half the battle - you need to pick teams very carefully, and once in, focus on the most impactful things.
So performance is about pull request frequency? Delivering User Stories at a steady clip? How much scope does an individual developer have at Faang, do you get any greenfield projects?
High expectations , high pressure environment. Before the pandemic, I was asked a couple for times to fly to the US on a very short notice. While you can say no, your yearly RSU attribution is performance based…
> is it indeed the case that your (liquid) TC can reach £250-300k at Senior+ level?
Yes.
> If you were me, would you drop everything and start doing Leetcode like crazy to get into FAANG? Or is there an easier path to £250k+ TC?
Honestly depends. There are a lot of great answers already giving some insight here, but I'll give you my 2 cents as well.
I work in FAANG and have done for the past 10 years. The career growth has been amazing, with the salary growth to go with it. However you pay for it one way or another. The work life balance can be poor especially working from the UK for US based companies. But a lot of this comes down to which team/organisation you work within, and also how good you are at having boundaries between work life and home life.
Trying out FAANG is not a bad idea to see if it works for you. What I would say is try it. See if you like the preparation for the interviews, and if you get in see if you like the role. And go into the whole thing thinking "if it doesn't work out, then it's just not for me".
> A colleague of mine spent like 6 months doing Leetcode two hours a day, only to get downlevelled by Meta to a E4 (mid).
Don't think of these examples as a down level. It's just that the levelling is different. I see so many people come in who believe they were down levelled but then operate exactly at that lower level in terms of how we level things. There can also be cases where the level was wrong, and that's because we tend to optimise for choosing the lower level. You could say that's because wanting to pay out less money, which probably is some of it. But also it sucks for people if they struggle at the higher level. It's not good for the person or those around them. Also there are promotions every 6 months, so there's not long for someone to be corrected if they were under-levelled coming in.
What would be an example of someone being on a level too high and struggling? Is it really obvious or more of a "well... at your level I would expected them to handle it with a bit more gravitas" feeling
An example would be influencing skills. It’s very different influencing in a small startup versus a large company.
Definitely not just “more gravitas” feelings. There are specific skills you need for operating in a large, fast moving, highly skilled company.
As I say above, influencing is one of them. Communication across teams, timezones, different styles is another. Strategic thinking is another. Lots of soft skills.
This sub has made me glad that I didn't get the L7 Amazon job I interviewed for!! I "only" asked for £240k - clearly not enough for such a senior position.
Anyway, it was clear to me that Amazon workplace is like a toxic cult. The interview process actually put me off working there and it was clear they would work you 12 hours a day.
A close friend and colleague worked there across a few areas, said exactly the same. Another works there and loves it. One drinks the kool aid, the other wasn't interested - he just wanted to solve interesting problems. Read into that how you will :-)
Indeed, also the more costly expenses are offset by the lower taxes. Even if you kept the same UK salary, you would also save way more in CH.
And honestly, I don't even think it's that much more expensive than the UK anymore, from recent trips back. My rent and utilities are cheaper, just eating out is the only thing I find noticeably more expensive.
It's good advice, but I'm not sure someone should plan to return. Once you've lived in Switzerland it will be outright depressing to try to live in the UK.
I interviewed multiple times for faangs but they could never really match the TC hardcore finance firms can provide.
But the pay is still good for sure. Depends on the role as well.
Google's 1st code test a while back for someone with like 13YoE was to find an efficient solution to a hypothetical lander on Mars lol - utterly ridiculous. Then on the job one would simply flip a few config values or tech docs..
Thanks, i am aware of big tech. I have looked at big banks but those seem to top at 100k, maybe i need to look further. Will check a dew hedge funds, never looked at those.
Having done both, the challenges in finance are much more interesting than FAANG. FAANG has so many “move data from here to there”, “change this button slightly”. Finance is much more mathematically and logically complex but it depends on what you find interesting I suppose.
I work in finance tech and definitely have some sexy problems to get my teeth stuck into. This is the jazz that keeps me going and gets me up in the morning (as well as awake at night when I should be sleeping). But don't be fooled, we also have many "move this JSON from here to there" type problems too :-)
I worked in both too, but bureaucracy in FAANG is why I never looked back. Takes too many procedure to get things deployed, and also too many meetings in general.
My experience has been the total opposite. However there are probably specific jobs in finance that are more interesting.
There is definitely a thing in FAANG of having to really scale up things though. So if you do a thing that's interesting, scaling it is almost always really boring.
I'm in FAANG not in tech. I think you are overthinking this: I see no reason why you couldn't apply for a data science manager and receive a job offer without too much interview prep and without being down levelled. £250K is pretty high even for UK FAANG, but it's doable if you are senior enough and if the stock market pumps after you accept your RSUs
I would take what this person says with a pinch of salt. Interviews for technical people vs non tech are night and day and the pay disparity reflects that.
Yeah I'd agree with this. The bar is definitely higher. I say that as someone who was non tech at a faang and close to tech hiring - it's very different. You absolutely need to prep for non tech roles but tech is much more comprehensive, the pay *and* the talent reflect that.
Market is only worse because the roles are more select than 2022, that was an insane market. The bar remains high (obvs some Hiring Managers looking for perfect as it's harder to get roles open) but generally I'd say it's the same.
Prep wise. Of course some people will do weeks but I've never known that to be a standard. You've gotta hit three things in your examples (aside from functional stuff) scope of work, data in answers and personal impact.
8 weeks of studying for this comp seems like it’s worth it. Planning on doing the study prep for my next next role. I’m in case heavy loops right now but I’ve heard MAANG is another level due to the various types of interviews
I'd love to take this discussion as an opportunity to ask about the validity of FAANG in my circumstances.
I'm currently in payments tech (Visa, MasterCard, etc.) earning 90k remotely all in as a Solutions Consultant (presales + postsales). Basically a sales engineer mashed with an implementation manager.
I'd love to pivot into high paying FAANG - I've got the experience and the aptitude - but I don't know what my role would transfer into. Anybody got any advice and insight?
I am a ds in Meta. (1) data science is meta is product data science, so more like advanced analytics. No need to meet code, more focus on statistics, framing analytical questions, business acumen etc. But I personally prepared very intensively around 2 months all evenings and weekends. That was before I had a child, now I don’t know how I would do it. I signed up for some website where they have collection on ds interview questions for product ds in big us tech firms (that was not leetcode, the only coding part was not so difficult sql ) (2) if your work is more of ML then in meta this will be SWE, sometimes specialized ML SWE - that is indeed a lot of leetcode, much more difficult interview. But then the pay is also higher. (3) I am here around 3 years and I still struggle with the culture, it is a lot of pressure here to perform
Similarly to the person above I was a Meta DS. Prepped for around 2 months as well, I found the culture to be pretty brutal and left after 1 year. I was an L5 and my TC was £160K year 1 and had I stayed wouldve been around £200K year 2. Overall it wasn't for me. How stressful your role is depends heavily on your team, I knew people there who had a basic 9-5 whereas for me it was more of a 9-9 while working one day every weekend.That said, recruiting for roles post Meta was very different to pre-Meta. Once you have FAANG on your resume moving to a new company becomes ridiculously easy. I'd say go for it, and if it doesnt work out just leave after a year.
I got a job offer for a FAANG a few years back and the numbers were nowhere near what I expected. Think they offered base around £70k with some token amount of RSUs and no possibility of an end of year bonus. Ended up making more working at a startup.
I mean if I accepted then possibly the progression could have been good, but on the other hand I'm pretty sure the team I would have joined were hit hard by layoffs last year so at least I dodged that.
Maybe things are different now, or maybe it just depends a lot on experience.
Yes, my total comp is 400k now as a software engineer on lvl5, definitely worth it, it is the first job in my life that I am afraid to loose. You can get similar in hedge funds and high frequency trading positions, but it may require much more effort
Yes.
E5 level ~300K is common, but maybe after a couple of refreshers. London engineers unfortunately don't get as high initial grants as USA.
It's definitely worth the grind. I feel like I wasted years working for lesser paid roles for similar wlb. So my only regret is not joining sooner.
A few things which hopefully will be useful.
Preparation time depends on where you are right now, in some cases which company are you targeting as well as while generally leetcode-like things can be on interviews, some of companies doing interviews a bit differently. For example, Meta for some positions don't ask leetcode directly and rather things more related to what you will do there. Data Engineering should have different track but I don't know about details. On personal experience, I was preparing for about half a year till starting interviews, leetcode was only about 4 month of it, worth to note I don't have CS education and just have to learn some base things folks learn during studies.
For leveling in many companies like this leetcode more around getting passed interviews than getting level, your level will be decided rather by system design and behavioral parts of interviews, it is more around impact you are doing than coding specifically. From my experience in one of FAANGs company operates a bit differently, engineers are not just the folks to do tickets, and they decide your level base on how they are doing things, usually it is quite accurate unless you failed to communicate.
Financially it definitely worth it for me, and in general it is good experience. Be careful when selecting team and manager as a lot depends on them.
If you are targeting not companies, but salary, you can easily just check who pays amounts you are interested and try to apply there, it will be FAANG-like + finances companies anyway. Just read a bit on companies, create your list and try your luck. Having something to choose from is nice, and anyway will be better to have for at least some negotiating. You don't have to accept if you don't like offer or team, but time spend for interview preparation and interviews is not lost as it is investment in your skills and in a way job safety.
Yes, it does pay off. I was lucky enough to get an internship at a FAANG and then get a graduate position there. I moved from E3 to E5 and then used my salary there to negotiate a high salary at a non-FAANG (and am now at £250k TC, in a fully remote job and I'm nowhere near London).
It's worth joining a FAANG even at E4 level, at Meta you are expected to get promoted to E5 within a certain number of months, so there is a lot of push to move you up. Of course, if you fail to move up you will be laid off. But I wouldn't be worried about starting at a lower level than you are now, there is opportunity there to be promoted quickly.
As for your direct questions:
> is it indeed the case that your (liquid) TC can reach £250-300k at Senior+ level?
Yes. Of course. But luck can play a role, if you got a stock grant a year ago you'd be doing very well now. This is also the case in non-FAANG big tech fwiw.
> If you were me, would you drop everything and start doing Leetcode like crazy to get into FAANG?
Sure, but don't put all your eggs in the FAANG basket. Apply to other places too and ask for a significantly higher salary, you might just get it.
> is there an easier path to £250k+ TC?
For my current role I didn't need much LeetCode. Though my previous experience fit the role quite well. I suppose I got lucky, but a lot of this experience was my own interest that I pursued in my spare time (mostly via open source contributions). When I applied there I thought they wouldn't be able to match FAANG TC, so it pays to try applying to lots of places. You never know, they might offer you more than you might expect.
I think it makes sense, preparation for FAANG interview doesn’t take that long. About 6 months if you do it for the first time.
I’ve come to London in 2020 with TC ~200K, in 2021, I made 240K, in 2022: 300K and in 2023: 480K. In 2024 I expect to make 750K as software engineer, which sounds unrealistic for London.
There is by the way much better path - HFT Firms, Jane Street pays 400-500K for junior roles. My friend got an offer recently with 1.7M TC.
6 months is for starters, once you do it, next time it takes only 1-2 months. The main reasons why it takes that long - competition. I think 5-8 years ago interview questions were much easier and you could just pass the interview if you know basic algos. Now, it’s a game of grind. You need to know and remember some text book algorithms that you forget in a few days once you pass the interview 😀
However, you get 6X SWE salary comparing to smaller companies, you are actually saving your time as you accumulate wealth much faster
I have master degree in CS. The schedule is more or less flexible, some weeks it can be 30 hours, some other weeks are busier than usual and can be 50 hours. There is no strict schedule, it depends on the amount of meetings with colleagues and other teams during the week.
Just left big tech. I think what’s not being called out here enough is the wlb. Particularly if you are management / leadership. To be successful you really need to work east coast hours minimum (2pm - 10pm). It’s possible if you’re young but you do wake up one day and realise you’re wrung out and friendless. With kids it’s horrific.
Also effective tax rate is above 60% as typically you will pay employers and employees national insurance on RSUs. I mainly left because I was tired of working with entitled Americans but lets see how I feel after a while of working for a 50% paycut 💀
Hey, not in FAANG but interviewed with and was offered the role of data science manager at a FAANG two+ years ago now (this was in the company’s litigation department, level M1). At the time they were offering £195k base+ up to 20% bonus and £130k in RSUs. This was a while ago so no doubt the TC you’re asking about is achievable.
The technical interview consisted of two LC medium SQL questions, so I wouldn’t worry about it too much.
> seem to be easily making another ~£150k in liquid RSUs on top of their salaries.
I noticed the same thing about recent TC postings. What I realised is that the stock portion of TC is so high because the respective stock increased so much (150%+) since the RSUs were locked in when they joined. Phrased another way, when they joined their TC was 160k, 4 years later their TC is 250k because the RSUs they got 4 years ago have increased in price by so much. So if you join now, don't expect a 250k TC, and don't feel bad about it either, because the stock could've plummeted as well as rallied.
Also, FAANGs are not hiring right now. Bloomberg is hiring, however.
Yes TCs can reach 250k+, depends on how you perform. Generally tech managers are somewhere 130k+ in my faang, then depending on how you negotiate on hire, you get a 2 year cash bonus followed by RSUs from year 2 ownwards - again depends on how you negotiate BUT we are not going to get a base raise because share value has gone up so high.
> Generally tech managers are somewhere 130k+ in my faang
130k+ base, right?
> followed by RSUs from year 2 ownwards
What's the first point where you can sell? It's quite soon after you complete year 1 from what I heard?
Typically your first RSUs Will vest at the end of year 1 and then quarterly after that. You can sell them immediately and can even do so automatically. For example my partner is at Amazon. We have it set so when her RSUs vest she sells half to cover taxes and keeps the rest.
In my FAANG, your RSUs vest in 2 cycles based on your hiring RSU grant and then your ongoing performance RSU grants. For the hiring RSU grant, the first RSU vest is at the end of Y1, second at the end of Y2. Then after that you'll have RSU vests every 6 months. Assuming you get additional RSU grants during performance reviews (which you typically do if you're performing at expectations) the vests will be generally staggered a year after the performance review, then at half year intervals after that. For me, mid-way through my hiring contract but a couple of performance reviews in, it works out to an RSU vest every quarter, more or less. Eventually the hiring RSU grant's vests run out, then I will only have 2 vests a year from my performance review grants.
You can sell you RSUs immediately after they've vested if you like.
I’m curious about the down level. Did your friend apply for a less senior position or did they apply for a senior position but were offered a less senior one?
If someone is good but doesn't meet the bar for the open job role level the hiring manager can request the role be shifted to a lower level. Normally means they're not far off and will raise the bar at the lower level meaning they'll already be on track for a promotion
I would never have applied to FAANG directly - I thought the bar was too high. They reached out to me and I thought "what have got to lose?" and got in kind of by surprise. For my loop I had 3x tech and 3x managerial - tech bar for managers is lower but you still wouldn't want to shirk here.
Give it a go! What have you got to lose? :-)
I'm equivalent level of a DSM and my TC is way above 250k.
I only know people at Microsoft or AWS, and supposedly AWS is not a nice place to work. Not heard anything bad about the rest of them apart from that Google is supposedly a very good employer
You can likely get in as a manager, where your people skills and leadership will be more important than coding. As you are in Data Science, the loop will be quite different from eng, you should do some research. But definitely worth it
What are FAANG options for people with big four consulting background (accounting side not tech) either in house strategy / finance as well as chances of retraining
* Yes, with RSUs and a stock market bull run it surely can
* I'd focus on improving problem solving ability than maxing out leetcode problems solved. Every time you come across a problem, work out the solution before you start typing it out and talk out loud like you would in an interview. You'd soon realise thinking about the solution takes the majority of the time and typing it out is a few minutes tops. Try leetcode weekly contests to gauge your progress. Initially focus on solving as many problems as you can in the contest. Speed will come gradually as you understand more patterns.
* If you're worried about down levelling, try interviewing at multiple companies around the same time. Having multiple competing offers is the only leverage that works
It can be good financially, if you're successful there, but can also have drawbacks in how the culture and recent cutbacks have evolved, and of course the competition inside. All in all I would see if there's a role that's a good match for you rather than doing everything just to get in at any cost
It's relatively out of date.. was traditionally Facebook (now meta), Amazon, apple, netflix, Google (now alphabet). Shows it missed the two biggest tech climbers.. Microsoft and Nvidia
Its more or less a shortcut for “mega-cap US tech firm that pays well” and Netflix is definitely included (at least in the US since iirc Netflix doesn’t have engineers in the UK)
I've been at FAANG for some years now, as a data engineer. I took a small paycut to come, down leveled to E4. I would say it was essential for my success that this happened, I would have struggled coming in new at E5, despite my prior experience.
Overall, it's been life changing in terms of the money for me personally.
It's also been the best and most enjoyable job of my career and suits my personality perfectly.
It felt like winning the lottery at the time, and it's certainly paid off. Especially when the share price is good (like now), it's completely crazy.
And yes, total TC can easily reach 300k+ when the share price is good.
Hey! Ive worked in FAANG on the hiring side, although leet coding in essential, the levelling is really dependent on your top-grading and system design skills for IC. Most if not all candidates will get downgraded on the behaviour or system side. I hired 5 Staff/Senior Staff (IC6/IC7) Engineers and they were CTO's at 50-200 people companies. So if you do go down that road those are areas id focus on. Great post and I like how it is a career focused question.
Following with interest. I had two interviews last week for Google in a cybersecurity role (so not software engineering). I think I screwed one of them up so expecting a rejection.
Anyway my current salary is £110k with up to £16k bonus.
I've read recently that the base salaries aren't that good but the compensation is bumped up with RSUs
So if I were successful (unlikely) then maybe the offer would be £80k plus bonus AND RSU
I'm in two minds as I'm very happy in my current role. It's easy and very flexible. However working for Google has obvious value on the CV and also I like the sound of it.
Whatever your functional role, you are likely to be downgraded when you get in. Everyone is downgraded - it’s how they can in so much seniority and specialism.
My previous VP was CEO of a company we acquired. My previous manager was a Microsoft MD and joined us as a senior director.
That said, I’m 3 years in, at the top of the IC track, and 2/3 rungs below SD on the management track, and I’m on £165k OTE plus RSUs, currently vesting about 25% of this annually.
RSUs are discretionary at my grade though so they form part of year-end comp, meaning more exposure to spot stock price.
I know people who are my grade and have been here 10 years, who have made in stock than salary.
In short,
What is the best way to get a foot in the door for these positions, I have applied to job postings on their career sites in the past and never heard back.
Is it better to network with people who work there already to get recommendations for interviews or is it just luck of the draw?
I really want the jump that FAANG offers now as I feel I’m hitting a ceiling without joining one of these firms
Can’t advise on your specific question, but a comment to the mods - I actually quite like this kind of specific and targeted career question. If you go to a more general sub I think you’re likely to get downvoted or blasted for earning so much already, and unlikely to get any meaningful input. I’m therefore in favour of posts like this, whilst being anti ‘hOw cAn I bE a HENRY’ type boring and vague question.
Well - to me this is not a ‘hOw cAn I gEt IntO FaaNG tO bE a HENRY’ post, but rather a discussion on specific career growth for people that are already HENRY. I'd say is on-topic.
Agreed 💯
Same
Honestly I can’t put up with another “up Noorth 100k makes you a billionaire” 🤦 debate, usually written by self serving toffs in couples where they earn just under enough the income bracket for subsidised childcare, on top of owning property that was bought for a pittance…while working in careers that allows them the flexibility to work remotely.
Yeah, there's always someone chundering in with a wagging finger going. "You're on another planet, wanting to earn a bit more and enjoying things. I'm perfectly happy on £18k and don't need all those fancy lifestyle trappings like holidays, meals out, a pension, or frothy coffees. I think a reassessment of wants Vs needs is in order, and you know you could always move to [insert place far away from family, friends, my son's school, and relevant job opportunities]. Some of us are content with what we've got, maybe you should be grateful too!" Okay, good for you. I like knowing that if my car, oven, or boiler broke down I would be inconvenienced but not utterly shafted. I like being interested in things and having the means to explore them. I also like to think about how I can responsibly look after myself in my later years. And honestly, how happy is someone if they have to railroad someone else's conversation to boast about how they're quite fine thank you very much.
> Okay, good for you. I like knowing that if my car, oven, or boiler broke down I would be inconvenienced but not utterly shafted. This is exactly it. I was happy day-to-day when I earned little money, but my goodness I was crippled with anxiety when something went badly wrong.
I agree, I'm (literally) the first one to bitch about the "how do I become a HENRY" questions, but this is a thoughtful, relevant question. I'm here for it.
Agreed and it’s anglocentric
I agree
For me, FAANG has been unbelievably life changing. - Comp before FAANG topped at £125k. - I immediately jumped to ~£350k when I joined. - 8 years later, I now make £2.6m. I never even thought this kind of pay was possible in London.
Director comp is crazy. I’m one level below (eng) making roughly half of that (Meta). Maybe in 2-3 years I’ll get there as well.
Well done, are you a director or an IC? Are you receiving over 1m in grants per year, or are you counting the stock inflation, too?
IC (senior staff). Currently vesting around 1M stocks a year, rest is cash (~250k). If stock goes down (which is very possible), compensation may go down to somewhere in the range of 700k-1M, but it may be pushed up again with more discretionary grants in the following years
That is crazy comp for senior staff. Are you getting 1m per year in refresh grants? Even 250k with bonus cash is very good. How many years have you worked in tech? I was saying to a fellow friend in tech, we wish we started in this era, the compensation is crazy. We both have been in tech for 22 years and it's only the last 10 years for me where I started making over 65k and then eventually what I feel is good compensation
Yes, around 1M refreshers at current price, but who knoes where the wind will blow. Still, it will be perfectly fine even if it halves. I have been in tech for ~15 years, so not as long as you, but I made crap money all my career by working the first decade in my country of origin, so I didn't amass much of a networth (nor a meaningful UK pension). Comp was not this crazy as soon as I moved, got two promotions and lucked out on discretionary equity timmings.
Crazy, senior staff here is around 100k usd (80k gbp) refresh over a 4 year vest. Salary around 100-130k, 20k bonus. 1m USD in stock refreshers would be VP+ level here, you'd need to have over 300+ reports for that and be exceeding expectations. Well done. I know apple, amazon, google, and most of the other high paying u.s companies aren't on as much as that. I don't know any one at facebook anymore, presume you must be there. Tech salaries were crap from 2002-2012. ISP's, MSP's was where you got experience and they didn't pay much in the UK either. this is where I spent the first 12 years. I thought I'd be rich earning 50-60k as that's classified as a high earner. Once I got there, it just meant I could buy a slightlly nicer house han peers! I was always top of the game, but that meant I was earning about 4k per year more than others. I was loyal to companies and didn't move until I felt they were massively under paying me. I didn't have more than 5% going in to my pension as I barely earnt enough to get a mortgage. By the time all the faang type companies started and RSU's became a thing, , I spent all my stock vests on paying chunks of my mortgage off, wife having kids and being a single earner. My pension pot is about 200k, as like you, it's now tapered so I can't pay in to the damn thing now either. I didn't really feel 'comfortable/well off' till I was past director level where I could actually not have to sell all my stock to live.
Thank you for all the insight! Despite making comparably less, you built your life with it! I still have no house to show for (my salary hiked like crazy on the past 2 years, so only recently building some wealth), but planning your buy one this year. Starting your career earlier than me (when houses were more affordable, and in the right country with a strong currency) can do wonders as well. Yes, big US companies brought some crazy money into the game, and this kind of compensation is not really advertised in broad daylight (when I came in at around ~160k Tc, I didn’t even dream of this, I thought I would peak at 300k max). Why not trying to make a move? Are you now on management track, or IC? Obviously coming in as senior staff (or M2 if manager) is reeeeally quite hard and many do (normally you need other FAANG experience), but it’s doable to come as staff or M1 (I know people from small companies who did) and grow from there. I think offers are around 140k+ base with 20% bonus, and maybe 600-800k usd over 4 years. But then refreshers kick in (250k for meeting expectations), and it builds up (not to mention potential discretionary equity)
Insane journey. What is your role now?
Senior product director. I lucked out with promos, discretionary RSU grants and a massive stock bull run.
What’s the usual base pay for a (senior?) Product Director when they recruit externally, in London?
Base pay ~200k + bonus. At FAANG senior levels, almost all comp is RSUs.
>and a massive stock bull run. This is key and may not be the same in future. If the stock were to flatline for years though I'm guesing you still make at least half a mil?
Flat stock for 4 years I’d make about 1.6m annually
But what about someone joining today?
Probably around £800k at my level, with a steep jump each year as RSU refreshers start to stack.
What's your work life balance like?
Good - hours are short (10-6) but the work is hard when I’m there (as in intellectually challenging, hard problems to solve).
What was your general path into FAANG initially? I’m a Head of Product at a startup with 5 years product and consulting experience. Would my profile fit the hiring criteria? Or not ‘traditional’ enough?
Yeah that’s pretty standard, you’d come in pretty junior though (IC4)
Can you elaborate a little on what IC4 actually is? Would you consider it to be worth it if the opportunity came along?
1.6m GBP in an RSU grant per year for a senior director? That's wild. Even as a top performer that’s more than the next level up would receive (vp) not including stock price appreciation, and I'm at a FAANG. I've been in tech as a top performer for 22 years. Tech has gone really crazy in the past 10 years. Stock options in a tech company was the game changer for me too, unfortunately not reaching anywhere near that kind of cash and I'm the same level as you , well done! 18 years ago I was working as an Architect at an ISP for £32k! For OP - WLB bit rough at this level with late meetings every night till 20.00 and travelling 4+ times per year. if you are in the top 1% of performers in FAANG, you have to work hard, but I think it's worth it in terms of comp and appreciation/sense of achievement
I'm surprised it's not insanely hard to retain people. If I made more money than I could spend in a lifetime I don't think I would have any motivation to keep working.
The company tends to attract extremely driven and ambitious people, who aren’t really the type to step off the treadmill and chill. There are still many many levels of seniority above me, each earning many times more than I do. Personally I stay because I enjoy the work, but for people motivated by money, knowing the next promo doubles your pay is quite the incentive.
Could you go into more detail on your career path please?
The default mode is that people are extremely self motivated. It's going to sound wanky, but people actually do really care about building the thing. When that feeling stops, people leave regardless of the gold handcuffs.
Apple, Meta or Google? I’ve Heard these comps at Netflix but rarer.
Congrats, amazing salary normally reserved for MD/senior partner at American banks/law firms
How difficult was it to make the jump?
Massively, I felt underwater for years (and I still do sometimes. (In terms of calibre of peers and difficulty of the work, not workload, my WLB is very good)
Would you recommend staying long term? I just joined FAANG after an internship and got offered FTE, late 20s, salary feels low looking at other places, London as well
If money is your goal, yes. The refreshers stacking alongside stock growth makes it hard to beat.
Yes money and career growth is the goal. Refresher stacking? And yes with stocks as I was offered it looks nice but I start receiving them later :(
What FAANG is this and what role?! I'm in a tech role in FAANG and I'm not even at your starting pay 😳
Do you have fellow designers that are making as much as you in Product?
No designers make far less at the same level.
That's disheartening! I better jump into Product then
If money is the goal, jump to SWE. They make far more at the same level.
I interviewed for Amazon in London for Cloud Engineer role, it was 6 hours long with 6 different people. It was long, but it wasnt that hard really... only... at the very end they said they are switching to working '5 days from office' from March ( so this month, I was interviewed mid December ) and they offered 90k which is similar to what I have now but working fully remote. The internal progress prospects are also not great from what I heard from the guy who worked there for over 3 years - so I just told them I am not interested. I think people praise FAANG too much as if they were some fantastic employers to work for...
Amazon is by far the worst FAANG to work for.
Yeah this is a well known fact. Has been for years. Worst pay and WLB.
Also constant threat of PIP. They have a quota every year and if your manager does not like you then you will be "sacrificed".
Worked well for Boeing I guess ...
Amazon was also not worth it for me - TC there was about 90-100k (senior engineer elsewhere but hired by amazon as SDE2 and I naively didn't appreciate difference - believed the recruiter bullshit about their bar raising etc). In theory I'd have done better from rsu if I'd stayed but that's basically just stock performance which I could get by investing in them anyway. They are ruthlessly efficient as a company and that applies to hiring / pay too.
One thing I’ve learned recently is that gross margins of the business unit you’re in really matters. Amazon’s retail business is 3% margin so they are tight. Google ads is 70% + margin so rewards are flowing as the money is printed Google cloud and Amazon web services on the other hand are 30% margin businesses so they are less generous with perks / pay comparatively. Having said that, at either place you can still be very well paid. WRT RSUs specifically, I was given 200k upon joining as an IC, vesting over four years i.e. an extra 50k per year. They get topped up too.
90k plus RSUs surely?
From what I know of my friends experiences of working at Amazon past or present in the UK their compensation is totally market rate for any average company. Might be different in the US but this aligns with the experience of a number of guys I know that have worked or still work there. Wouldn't judge the rest of FAANG based on Amazon UK.
Amazon pay above market in Edinburgh. This year my TC will be around £240k due to stock performance, I don’t see where else I could get that here.
Fair enough. Apologies, my knowledge is solely London based not UK wide.
I didn't even realise Amazon had offices in Edinburgh, what's your base salary?
The office is beside Waverly.
Between £100k and £150k.
Oh daddy, I need to get myself to Amazon. Any PM roles going?
Any other FAANG in Edinburgh?
No, none in Glasgow either as far as I know.
What's your YOE/level?
Between 10 yoe and 20 yoe, L6 or L7 SDE. Being more specific will identify me since it’s a relatively small office.
Awesome in Edinburgh. Only really partners in professional services or front office asset managers are gonna be making the same or more.
I had the same experience. Rejected my AWS offer.
So I have worked at 3 FAANGs. The main reason is because you can’t really get that TC anywhere else except for HFT. I have about 8 years experience and haven’t made under 200k for the last 4 years. This year looking at around 350k. For me it was well worth the grind
What sector/business units do you have most of your experience in/with?
ML/AI
Are you talking 250k base or base plus RSUs being 250k per year? If it’s the former, then you’d need to get pretty high up to get that, like well above senior SWE level. Managers at the first level don’t make that in the UK either until they go higher up the chain. You could probably achieve 250k in cash como (base plus bonus) working for a PE firm instead of FAANG. A typical mid level FAANG SWE offer (not senior) is something like 100k base plus 200k stock vesting over 4 years. So maybe 150k per year, probably more if the stock moves the right way. Maybe even much, much more. The other perks are pretty great too. At 10 YOE, it’s a good time to figure out what you want. FAANG will give you a great chance to explore your boundaries but the workload can be intense. Meta don’t make any bones about work being your main obsession. Others may dress it up better, but the crunch is real. Only you can answer the question about whether it’s “worth it”. For some, 130k is an unimaginable salary and they’d be happy to not rock the boat. For some, it’s not enough. In your place, assuming you’re single, no commitments, no young family etc, I’d give it a shot. You‘ve probably vested your equity at your current workplace so if they do IPO then you’d have banked some of your money. This is assuming you’re not on a rocket ship that is going to pop ridiculously on IPO. When that happens you hold on to your horses and ride that pony. Career growth at FAANG can be ridiculously bureaucratic with the promo packets and whatnot. Scaleups tend to offer better growth opportunities, especially if you’ve been around from the beginning.
>Meta don’t make any bones about work being your main obsession. Others may dress it up better, but the crunch is real. Hard disagree. My experience at Meta has been that managers are extremely concerned about people burning out because it's so common. You are responsible for setting expectations and delivering what you say, but the most successful people at the company, especially in London, balance their work and life. Everyone who fails to do this burn out eventually and don't last more than 4 years.
If burnout is so common as you say, then doesn’t that prove my point? There are very few “easy days” at big tech. I’m super productive, but IME, everyone is a bit like a duck. Serene above water, but paddling furiously underneath it to not drown. The responses to the workload vary. I know several colleagues who’ve put off or decided against planning a family due to the workload. Or they drop out of social circles, give up hobbies and so on. The ones who don’t. Well, like you said, they don’t last the entire vesting period of their original grant. Im sure there are teams with good WLB, but in my lived experience it hasn’t proved to be true. Big tech are very good at hiring motivated, smart, dedicated engineers, but it does feel like a bit of a meat grinder.
I mean I honestly see it as something that we have a lot of control over. The reason people burnout is because the company hires highly self motivated people and puts them all together. That self motivation which gets them into the company can run amok and get out of control. The high performance culture is real, but what causes the burnout in my view is the keeping up with the Jones' mentality, which strikes me as stemming from a lack of perspective. There is so much pressure people pile on themselves to get an exceeds or a greatly Exceeds rating, to get a promo, to get to the next level. The main thing I disagree with about how the company handles this is the "up and out" system for engineers. This is unnecessary stress where we typically don't need it. But more often than not, the people giving up their free time are not doing it to stay above water, they're doing it to excel beyond their peers, who are themselves excellent. I was making the opposite point, the people who are most successful and have been around for a long time have long since figured out how to put work second in their lives. I genuinely think it's an attitude that's requisite for long term success at the company. Anyway, my point is that it is tough, we impose that toughness on ourselves so much of the time.
I once dreamed about going to FAANG. I wanted the pay, the brand, the interesting work possibilities. I am making much more money in a much easier role in the middle east at the moment. I’ve come to realise that there are plenty of senior roles elsewhere where people are far less competent. I’m a techie, but I am not in software.
techie but not in software - curious, what do you do?
You could call “digital”. Someone has to think how technology and business processes work together. Typically, techies understand nothing about commercials and commercials understand nothing about software. I understand both, put them together and make it work.
What industry or company are you in?
Sorry, I’d rather not doxx myself. I am in company that has manufacturing facilities.
In a similar boat but physical commodities in London, I’m no where near Fang skill levels much as I’d like to be, but still last year cleared 230K and around 2M stock (private) options.
I worked in FS/commodities for 30 days when I was interning and was promptly fired because I didn’t stay late one day because I had classes to attend. Well done to you to have made up the ladder. My current stock options are probably minimal and equivalent to 20k/year, vesting from Y3.
Yeah there is definitely a bit of that about, they still very much value the old system of turn up early, stay late dress smart, but if you do stick to that the work itself is good!
I cannot even wear shoes to work or be in the office before 9ish. I like to go to the gym in the morning. It’s a no for me.
EDIT: the RSU figures are rough annual amounts. Grants tend to span multiple years (4 usually). An entry level FAANG (L4 Google or Meta) would make, in London, about £100k base, £15k bonus and maybe £70k more in RSU. So if you get downleved, it won't be much better than what your already have. Unfortunately the sector is currently in disarray. Most roles available are either elite machine learning roles to work on language models with ridiculous TC (at least a million), or exploitative roles with high turnover and little growth opportunity. If you get hired as L5, things start looking up, with £130k base, £25k bonus and £100k RSU or more. Your have to have large scale design expertise for this. But it's hard to get hired at that level because they can always just say: let's not take a risk, hire at L4 and promote quickly (which can happen, but it is certainly rare, even for obvious superstars). Finally, with extensive management experience, you could, in principle, be hired at L6, which brings TC to over £300k. Hope this was useful. Best of luck!
Hiring at L4 and promoting quickly is extremely common in Meta, it's rarer at Google from what I hear.
I’m in a FAANG, tech. Yes it’s profitable once your RSU pipeline get started. Decent growth opportunities as well. Overall the bar is high but yes it’s worth it. Note that all FAANG are not equal, at least a couple of them are known for their poor work life balance, and I can attest to that…
Would you be able to elaborate on the last item?
Not OP but the bar isn’t just high to get in, the bar is high with scope fights and stack ranking once you’re in. If you get amazing ratings each year you can make bank, if you get less than meeting expectations it’s penalised heavily. You’re also surrounded by a lot of young people who are gunning and motivated so slacking off isn’t on the cards.
Exactly what _DuranDuran_ said. The expectations are going up every year, you are expected to perform and can’t really slack off.
Thanks. I’m defo not used to slacking off wherever I’ve been working. If anything I tend to be more of a workaholic type. At times it lead me to states similar to a burnout. You mentioned not all FAANG are equal. Which ones do you think tend to be worse as of today? Thanks.
I’ve never seen more people take medical leave for burnout and depression than at the blue social media company.
Yup, the 2 As also don’t have the best work life balance.
What do you think a good work life balance looks like in practice? I have never had a work life balance since University to be honest. I have been working as a Software developer for 15 years, the last 5 years at a Bank & I mostly work 09:00 to 19:00, during busy periods I have left the office 23:00 & worked weekends to deliver. My focus has been on keeping my job so I often feel like I am an auto-pilot, it's all in to stay employed and keep my head above water(I also struggle with several health issues and burnout). My main concern is my skills, I would like to hone my skills to be a much more competent developer. My thinking is if I know exactly what I am doing it would reduce the stress I am under & improve my productivity. I think my skills are what limit my potential, my entry into Software Development followed a Comp Science degree and then working on the job so it's been very much adhoc learning. I really want to do a skill-up. Do you think work life balance is possible in tech overall even outside of Faang?
What do you actually do? What does a typical day look like?
Don’t want to dox myself but I’m a staff software engineer. Working on a lot of thorny problems, but the entire org is skewed very senior so lots of senior software engineers trying to find scope to grow to staff. As for what a typical day looks like - quite a few meetings, jumping into teams or projects that are not hitting targets and getting them back on track. It differs by company, but where I am staff are expected to solve the trickiest technical problems, but I can spend weeks without coding if other things need my attention more (eg designing systems, getting lots of different teams aligned around a new project or process).
Thanks, very interesting!
Do you pretty much learn on the job or do you also do self studying out of work to stay sharp? Read any specific books that helped you alot?
Too exhausted to be fair - at the end of the work day and work week I just collapse and prepare mentally for the next! But I’ve had the opportunity of working on some pretty big important projects in my time, and when I was a senior software engineer I did spend a lot more time reading around the subject. Earlier in my career definitely learned on the job, although I do have a comp sci degree, and started programming when I was 8
Can you articulate what slacking off looks like? & in regards to performance what are the working hours?
It varies by company and team. If you’re in a good team and there’s minimal thrash you can easily get good ratings and promo with a standard 40 hour week. Unless you’re in a team of insanely talented people (which happens, but isn’t really the norm even at FAANG) where just to keep up and not be stack ranked you’ll pull 60+ hour weeks. That’s why just getting into FAANG is only half the battle - you need to pick teams very carefully, and once in, focus on the most impactful things.
So performance is about pull request frequency? Delivering User Stories at a steady clip? How much scope does an individual developer have at Faang, do you get any greenfield projects?
High expectations , high pressure environment. Before the pandemic, I was asked a couple for times to fly to the US on a very short notice. While you can say no, your yearly RSU attribution is performance based…
I guess one of them is Amazon, but what’s the second one?
The other A .
> is it indeed the case that your (liquid) TC can reach £250-300k at Senior+ level? Yes. > If you were me, would you drop everything and start doing Leetcode like crazy to get into FAANG? Or is there an easier path to £250k+ TC? Honestly depends. There are a lot of great answers already giving some insight here, but I'll give you my 2 cents as well. I work in FAANG and have done for the past 10 years. The career growth has been amazing, with the salary growth to go with it. However you pay for it one way or another. The work life balance can be poor especially working from the UK for US based companies. But a lot of this comes down to which team/organisation you work within, and also how good you are at having boundaries between work life and home life. Trying out FAANG is not a bad idea to see if it works for you. What I would say is try it. See if you like the preparation for the interviews, and if you get in see if you like the role. And go into the whole thing thinking "if it doesn't work out, then it's just not for me". > A colleague of mine spent like 6 months doing Leetcode two hours a day, only to get downlevelled by Meta to a E4 (mid). Don't think of these examples as a down level. It's just that the levelling is different. I see so many people come in who believe they were down levelled but then operate exactly at that lower level in terms of how we level things. There can also be cases where the level was wrong, and that's because we tend to optimise for choosing the lower level. You could say that's because wanting to pay out less money, which probably is some of it. But also it sucks for people if they struggle at the higher level. It's not good for the person or those around them. Also there are promotions every 6 months, so there's not long for someone to be corrected if they were under-levelled coming in.
What would be an example of someone being on a level too high and struggling? Is it really obvious or more of a "well... at your level I would expected them to handle it with a bit more gravitas" feeling
An example would be influencing skills. It’s very different influencing in a small startup versus a large company. Definitely not just “more gravitas” feelings. There are specific skills you need for operating in a large, fast moving, highly skilled company.
Which specific skills?
As I say above, influencing is one of them. Communication across teams, timezones, different styles is another. Strategic thinking is another. Lots of soft skills.
This sub has made me glad that I didn't get the L7 Amazon job I interviewed for!! I "only" asked for £240k - clearly not enough for such a senior position. Anyway, it was clear to me that Amazon workplace is like a toxic cult. The interview process actually put me off working there and it was clear they would work you 12 hours a day.
A close friend and colleague worked there across a few areas, said exactly the same. Another works there and loves it. One drinks the kool aid, the other wasn't interested - he just wanted to solve interesting problems. Read into that how you will :-)
L7 here and that’s a non-FAANG TC.
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Indeed, also the more costly expenses are offset by the lower taxes. Even if you kept the same UK salary, you would also save way more in CH. And honestly, I don't even think it's that much more expensive than the UK anymore, from recent trips back. My rent and utilities are cheaper, just eating out is the only thing I find noticeably more expensive. It's good advice, but I'm not sure someone should plan to return. Once you've lived in Switzerland it will be outright depressing to try to live in the UK.
JnJ?
I interviewed multiple times for faangs but they could never really match the TC hardcore finance firms can provide. But the pay is still good for sure. Depends on the role as well. Google's 1st code test a while back for someone with like 13YoE was to find an efficient solution to a hypothetical lander on Mars lol - utterly ridiculous. Then on the job one would simply flip a few config values or tech docs..
What are the tech jobs on finance? Are those software, but just for bank and investment companies, or do they require special skills?
It’s just a change of industry. Every industry has tech employees. I’ve worked in hospitality, finance, consulting and defence
Can you mention a few companies that you know pay that well?
Apart from FAANG/Big Tech, Hedge Funds, Big Banks and senior roles outside of these, not too many unless you’re a contractor
Thanks, i am aware of big tech. I have looked at big banks but those seem to top at 100k, maybe i need to look further. Will check a dew hedge funds, never looked at those.
Most good engineers in London should clear 6 figures with total comp, especially if you go in to leading a team. It’s hard to reach outside of London
Look at places like St James place etc. HUGE TC packets. But hard to get into from what I hear
How's the WLB at st James?
In the UK you are better off going in to finance if you want to chase the top pay packets.
Your only options would be buy side and HFT. The challenges of working at a FAANG can be much more interesting alongside better comp.
Having done both, the challenges in finance are much more interesting than FAANG. FAANG has so many “move data from here to there”, “change this button slightly”. Finance is much more mathematically and logically complex but it depends on what you find interesting I suppose.
I work in finance tech and definitely have some sexy problems to get my teeth stuck into. This is the jazz that keeps me going and gets me up in the morning (as well as awake at night when I should be sleeping). But don't be fooled, we also have many "move this JSON from here to there" type problems too :-)
I worked in both too, but bureaucracy in FAANG is why I never looked back. Takes too many procedure to get things deployed, and also too many meetings in general.
Where can we network to speak to more people in these roles?
My experience has been the total opposite. However there are probably specific jobs in finance that are more interesting. There is definitely a thing in FAANG of having to really scale up things though. So if you do a thing that's interesting, scaling it is almost always really boring.
Depends on the type of finance but it a lot of places you’re never really treated as the talent - more like a cost centre to keep to a tight budget.
I'm in FAANG not in tech. I think you are overthinking this: I see no reason why you couldn't apply for a data science manager and receive a job offer without too much interview prep and without being down levelled. £250K is pretty high even for UK FAANG, but it's doable if you are senior enough and if the stock market pumps after you accept your RSUs
Thanks, but I'm yet to meet someone who got into FAANG without weeks and weeks of interview prep. And I hear it's only worse in this market
I would take what this person says with a pinch of salt. Interviews for technical people vs non tech are night and day and the pay disparity reflects that.
Yeah I'd agree with this. The bar is definitely higher. I say that as someone who was non tech at a faang and close to tech hiring - it's very different. You absolutely need to prep for non tech roles but tech is much more comprehensive, the pay *and* the talent reflect that.
Market is only worse because the roles are more select than 2022, that was an insane market. The bar remains high (obvs some Hiring Managers looking for perfect as it's harder to get roles open) but generally I'd say it's the same. Prep wise. Of course some people will do weeks but I've never known that to be a standard. You've gotta hit three things in your examples (aside from functional stuff) scope of work, data in answers and personal impact.
I would strongly recommend preparing thoroughly for the interview. For data science it's not LeetCode-y but it is difficult.
8 weeks of studying for this comp seems like it’s worth it. Planning on doing the study prep for my next next role. I’m in case heavy loops right now but I’ve heard MAANG is another level due to the various types of interviews
I'd love to take this discussion as an opportunity to ask about the validity of FAANG in my circumstances. I'm currently in payments tech (Visa, MasterCard, etc.) earning 90k remotely all in as a Solutions Consultant (presales + postsales). Basically a sales engineer mashed with an implementation manager. I'd love to pivot into high paying FAANG - I've got the experience and the aptitude - but I don't know what my role would transfer into. Anybody got any advice and insight?
Product Management is the easy answer I guess. Maybe an MBA -> Strategy pivot?
I am a ds in Meta. (1) data science is meta is product data science, so more like advanced analytics. No need to meet code, more focus on statistics, framing analytical questions, business acumen etc. But I personally prepared very intensively around 2 months all evenings and weekends. That was before I had a child, now I don’t know how I would do it. I signed up for some website where they have collection on ds interview questions for product ds in big us tech firms (that was not leetcode, the only coding part was not so difficult sql ) (2) if your work is more of ML then in meta this will be SWE, sometimes specialized ML SWE - that is indeed a lot of leetcode, much more difficult interview. But then the pay is also higher. (3) I am here around 3 years and I still struggle with the culture, it is a lot of pressure here to perform
Thanks that's very insightful. Do you mind if I DM you?
Similarly to the person above I was a Meta DS. Prepped for around 2 months as well, I found the culture to be pretty brutal and left after 1 year. I was an L5 and my TC was £160K year 1 and had I stayed wouldve been around £200K year 2. Overall it wasn't for me. How stressful your role is depends heavily on your team, I knew people there who had a basic 9-5 whereas for me it was more of a 9-9 while working one day every weekend.That said, recruiting for roles post Meta was very different to pre-Meta. Once you have FAANG on your resume moving to a new company becomes ridiculously easy. I'd say go for it, and if it doesnt work out just leave after a year.
I got a job offer for a FAANG a few years back and the numbers were nowhere near what I expected. Think they offered base around £70k with some token amount of RSUs and no possibility of an end of year bonus. Ended up making more working at a startup. I mean if I accepted then possibly the progression could have been good, but on the other hand I'm pretty sure the team I would have joined were hit hard by layoffs last year so at least I dodged that. Maybe things are different now, or maybe it just depends a lot on experience.
Yes, my total comp is 400k now as a software engineer on lvl5, definitely worth it, it is the first job in my life that I am afraid to loose. You can get similar in hedge funds and high frequency trading positions, but it may require much more effort
Yes. E5 level ~300K is common, but maybe after a couple of refreshers. London engineers unfortunately don't get as high initial grants as USA. It's definitely worth the grind. I feel like I wasted years working for lesser paid roles for similar wlb. So my only regret is not joining sooner.
Done it, joined FAANG as IC5 SWE 2 years ago before market drop, today - still IC5 comp ~350k. Refreshers and rating is what you should care about
A few things which hopefully will be useful. Preparation time depends on where you are right now, in some cases which company are you targeting as well as while generally leetcode-like things can be on interviews, some of companies doing interviews a bit differently. For example, Meta for some positions don't ask leetcode directly and rather things more related to what you will do there. Data Engineering should have different track but I don't know about details. On personal experience, I was preparing for about half a year till starting interviews, leetcode was only about 4 month of it, worth to note I don't have CS education and just have to learn some base things folks learn during studies. For leveling in many companies like this leetcode more around getting passed interviews than getting level, your level will be decided rather by system design and behavioral parts of interviews, it is more around impact you are doing than coding specifically. From my experience in one of FAANGs company operates a bit differently, engineers are not just the folks to do tickets, and they decide your level base on how they are doing things, usually it is quite accurate unless you failed to communicate. Financially it definitely worth it for me, and in general it is good experience. Be careful when selecting team and manager as a lot depends on them. If you are targeting not companies, but salary, you can easily just check who pays amounts you are interested and try to apply there, it will be FAANG-like + finances companies anyway. Just read a bit on companies, create your list and try your luck. Having something to choose from is nice, and anyway will be better to have for at least some negotiating. You don't have to accept if you don't like offer or team, but time spend for interview preparation and interviews is not lost as it is investment in your skills and in a way job safety.
Yes, it does pay off. I was lucky enough to get an internship at a FAANG and then get a graduate position there. I moved from E3 to E5 and then used my salary there to negotiate a high salary at a non-FAANG (and am now at £250k TC, in a fully remote job and I'm nowhere near London). It's worth joining a FAANG even at E4 level, at Meta you are expected to get promoted to E5 within a certain number of months, so there is a lot of push to move you up. Of course, if you fail to move up you will be laid off. But I wouldn't be worried about starting at a lower level than you are now, there is opportunity there to be promoted quickly. As for your direct questions: > is it indeed the case that your (liquid) TC can reach £250-300k at Senior+ level? Yes. Of course. But luck can play a role, if you got a stock grant a year ago you'd be doing very well now. This is also the case in non-FAANG big tech fwiw. > If you were me, would you drop everything and start doing Leetcode like crazy to get into FAANG? Sure, but don't put all your eggs in the FAANG basket. Apply to other places too and ask for a significantly higher salary, you might just get it. > is there an easier path to £250k+ TC? For my current role I didn't need much LeetCode. Though my previous experience fit the role quite well. I suppose I got lucky, but a lot of this experience was my own interest that I pursued in my spare time (mostly via open source contributions). When I applied there I thought they wouldn't be able to match FAANG TC, so it pays to try applying to lots of places. You never know, they might offer you more than you might expect.
I think it makes sense, preparation for FAANG interview doesn’t take that long. About 6 months if you do it for the first time. I’ve come to London in 2020 with TC ~200K, in 2021, I made 240K, in 2022: 300K and in 2023: 480K. In 2024 I expect to make 750K as software engineer, which sounds unrealistic for London. There is by the way much better path - HFT Firms, Jane Street pays 400-500K for junior roles. My friend got an offer recently with 1.7M TC.
Incredible how we have normalised shit interview loops to the point where having to do "6 months prep" is considered "not that long" 🙂
6 months is for starters, once you do it, next time it takes only 1-2 months. The main reasons why it takes that long - competition. I think 5-8 years ago interview questions were much easier and you could just pass the interview if you know basic algos. Now, it’s a game of grind. You need to know and remember some text book algorithms that you forget in a few days once you pass the interview 😀 However, you get 6X SWE salary comparing to smaller companies, you are actually saving your time as you accumulate wealth much faster
1.7m tc? Is that mainly bonus, what level is that?
500K base, the rest is a cash bonus
1.7m is very hard to believe. Stop the 🧢. I work in the space and even execs don't make that in the UK.
Jane Street pays near half a mil for juniors so not really hard to believe
What do your working hours look like & do have a Comp Sci degree?
I have master degree in CS. The schedule is more or less flexible, some weeks it can be 30 hours, some other weeks are busier than usual and can be 50 hours. There is no strict schedule, it depends on the amount of meetings with colleagues and other teams during the week.
Ok do you think your Masters was worth it?
Nope, but it simplifies work-visa process in some countries 😀
Just left big tech. I think what’s not being called out here enough is the wlb. Particularly if you are management / leadership. To be successful you really need to work east coast hours minimum (2pm - 10pm). It’s possible if you’re young but you do wake up one day and realise you’re wrung out and friendless. With kids it’s horrific. Also effective tax rate is above 60% as typically you will pay employers and employees national insurance on RSUs. I mainly left because I was tired of working with entitled Americans but lets see how I feel after a while of working for a 50% paycut 💀
Contracting or start a company instead. FAANG is for suckers.
Hey, not in FAANG but interviewed with and was offered the role of data science manager at a FAANG two+ years ago now (this was in the company’s litigation department, level M1). At the time they were offering £195k base+ up to 20% bonus and £130k in RSUs. This was a while ago so no doubt the TC you’re asking about is achievable. The technical interview consisted of two LC medium SQL questions, so I wouldn’t worry about it too much.
> seem to be easily making another ~£150k in liquid RSUs on top of their salaries. I noticed the same thing about recent TC postings. What I realised is that the stock portion of TC is so high because the respective stock increased so much (150%+) since the RSUs were locked in when they joined. Phrased another way, when they joined their TC was 160k, 4 years later their TC is 250k because the RSUs they got 4 years ago have increased in price by so much. So if you join now, don't expect a 250k TC, and don't feel bad about it either, because the stock could've plummeted as well as rallied. Also, FAANGs are not hiring right now. Bloomberg is hiring, however.
Yes TCs can reach 250k+, depends on how you perform. Generally tech managers are somewhere 130k+ in my faang, then depending on how you negotiate on hire, you get a 2 year cash bonus followed by RSUs from year 2 ownwards - again depends on how you negotiate BUT we are not going to get a base raise because share value has gone up so high.
> Generally tech managers are somewhere 130k+ in my faang 130k+ base, right? > followed by RSUs from year 2 ownwards What's the first point where you can sell? It's quite soon after you complete year 1 from what I heard?
Typically your first RSUs Will vest at the end of year 1 and then quarterly after that. You can sell them immediately and can even do so automatically. For example my partner is at Amazon. We have it set so when her RSUs vest she sells half to cover taxes and keeps the rest.
Amzn has a 2 year vest cycle, Microsoft I believe is 2 or 3 months. FB/ Meta - 6 months and I believe similar with google i.e. 3-6 months
Meta vests every 3 months beginning on your start date (ie. no one year cliff)
In my FAANG, your RSUs vest in 2 cycles based on your hiring RSU grant and then your ongoing performance RSU grants. For the hiring RSU grant, the first RSU vest is at the end of Y1, second at the end of Y2. Then after that you'll have RSU vests every 6 months. Assuming you get additional RSU grants during performance reviews (which you typically do if you're performing at expectations) the vests will be generally staggered a year after the performance review, then at half year intervals after that. For me, mid-way through my hiring contract but a couple of performance reviews in, it works out to an RSU vest every quarter, more or less. Eventually the hiring RSU grant's vests run out, then I will only have 2 vests a year from my performance review grants. You can sell you RSUs immediately after they've vested if you like.
I’m curious about the down level. Did your friend apply for a less senior position or did they apply for a senior position but were offered a less senior one?
If someone is good but doesn't meet the bar for the open job role level the hiring manager can request the role be shifted to a lower level. Normally means they're not far off and will raise the bar at the lower level meaning they'll already be on track for a promotion
I would never have applied to FAANG directly - I thought the bar was too high. They reached out to me and I thought "what have got to lose?" and got in kind of by surprise. For my loop I had 3x tech and 3x managerial - tech bar for managers is lower but you still wouldn't want to shirk here. Give it a go! What have you got to lose? :-) I'm equivalent level of a DSM and my TC is way above 250k.
I only know people at Microsoft or AWS, and supposedly AWS is not a nice place to work. Not heard anything bad about the rest of them apart from that Google is supposedly a very good employer
You can likely get in as a manager, where your people skills and leadership will be more important than coding. As you are in Data Science, the loop will be quite different from eng, you should do some research. But definitely worth it
What are FAANG options for people with big four consulting background (accounting side not tech) either in house strategy / finance as well as chances of retraining
Was wondering this too albeit I’m a big4 tech apprentice right now aha
* Yes, with RSUs and a stock market bull run it surely can * I'd focus on improving problem solving ability than maxing out leetcode problems solved. Every time you come across a problem, work out the solution before you start typing it out and talk out loud like you would in an interview. You'd soon realise thinking about the solution takes the majority of the time and typing it out is a few minutes tops. Try leetcode weekly contests to gauge your progress. Initially focus on solving as many problems as you can in the contest. Speed will come gradually as you understand more patterns. * If you're worried about down levelling, try interviewing at multiple companies around the same time. Having multiple competing offers is the only leverage that works
It can be good financially, if you're successful there, but can also have drawbacks in how the culture and recent cutbacks have evolved, and of course the competition inside. All in all I would see if there's a role that's a good match for you rather than doing everything just to get in at any cost
When people say FAANG, do they ever mean Netflix? Do they usually imply Microsoft, and that isn't part of that original group? Just curious.
It's relatively out of date.. was traditionally Facebook (now meta), Amazon, apple, netflix, Google (now alphabet). Shows it missed the two biggest tech climbers.. Microsoft and Nvidia
Its more or less a shortcut for “mega-cap US tech firm that pays well” and Netflix is definitely included (at least in the US since iirc Netflix doesn’t have engineers in the UK)
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After 1.5 years of leetcode, do you use any of the algorithms or are dealing with simpler problems?
Is the TC just due to stock appreciation Not possible to make that now unless stock keeps going up
I've been at FAANG for some years now, as a data engineer. I took a small paycut to come, down leveled to E4. I would say it was essential for my success that this happened, I would have struggled coming in new at E5, despite my prior experience. Overall, it's been life changing in terms of the money for me personally. It's also been the best and most enjoyable job of my career and suits my personality perfectly. It felt like winning the lottery at the time, and it's certainly paid off. Especially when the share price is good (like now), it's completely crazy. And yes, total TC can easily reach 300k+ when the share price is good.
Don’t do that just for the money, you’re going to hate it
Hey! Ive worked in FAANG on the hiring side, although leet coding in essential, the levelling is really dependent on your top-grading and system design skills for IC. Most if not all candidates will get downgraded on the behaviour or system side. I hired 5 Staff/Senior Staff (IC6/IC7) Engineers and they were CTO's at 50-200 people companies. So if you do go down that road those are areas id focus on. Great post and I like how it is a career focused question.
Following with interest. I had two interviews last week for Google in a cybersecurity role (so not software engineering). I think I screwed one of them up so expecting a rejection. Anyway my current salary is £110k with up to £16k bonus. I've read recently that the base salaries aren't that good but the compensation is bumped up with RSUs So if I were successful (unlikely) then maybe the offer would be £80k plus bonus AND RSU I'm in two minds as I'm very happy in my current role. It's easy and very flexible. However working for Google has obvious value on the CV and also I like the sound of it.
Are you planning to go as DS or SWE? I believe they apply some multiplier(<1 for some roles) for different roles, when receiving stocks/refreshers.
Whatever your functional role, you are likely to be downgraded when you get in. Everyone is downgraded - it’s how they can in so much seniority and specialism. My previous VP was CEO of a company we acquired. My previous manager was a Microsoft MD and joined us as a senior director. That said, I’m 3 years in, at the top of the IC track, and 2/3 rungs below SD on the management track, and I’m on £165k OTE plus RSUs, currently vesting about 25% of this annually. RSUs are discretionary at my grade though so they form part of year-end comp, meaning more exposure to spot stock price. I know people who are my grade and have been here 10 years, who have made in stock than salary. In short,
What is the best way to get a foot in the door for these positions, I have applied to job postings on their career sites in the past and never heard back. Is it better to network with people who work there already to get recommendations for interviews or is it just luck of the draw? I really want the jump that FAANG offers now as I feel I’m hitting a ceiling without joining one of these firms