At the beginning of the New Year, many friends around the bonus, plan to change jobs or job, just ask the programmer treatment, level and other topics, here on silicon Valley several big factories (Google, Facebook, linkedin, Flax, Microsoft, etc.) salary composition, programmer level and career development to do some simple introduction.

01

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Salary structure

People in tech companies use TC, Total Compensation, to represent the Total package size of actual revenue. The calculation method of TC varies slightly from company to company, but it includes the following parts:

  • Base salary

  • Their year-end Bonus

  • Stock Equity (RSU/Option)

    • Initial grant of stock

    • Refresh a newly issued stock

Base salary

This is the fixed income written on the entry contract, which is determined according to the market price, Level, interview performance and the existence of competing offer at the time of entry.

Your base salary will be adjusted after you are promoted. In each large company, different levels correspond to a range. After the appreciation, some companies will raise the base to P50 of the next level range, which is the median.

Of course, it will be discussed on a case-by-case basis. For example, some people stay at a certain level for a long time, or change their job to a new level. It is very likely that their current base is already the high end of the current level (approaching the median of the next level), so their base will only increase slightly after promotion.

Their year-end Bonus

The year-end bonus is calculated differently by different companies, and several large companies in the Bay Area can more or less calculate it according to this formula:

bonus = base * target_bonus_ratio

* individual_multiplier

* company_multiplier

+ manager’s_tweak

Target Bonus Ratio is fixed. The higher the level, the higher the ratio. The Individual performance Multiplier is calculated based on the annual performance multiplier, and the company multiplier is calculated based on the annual base performance of the company. Finally, some companies also have boss fine-tuning. Each group will have a budget pool, and the boss will balance it slightly according to the contributions of the group members.

Bonus is recognition of the hard work of the past year.

Stock Equity

Stock income mainly consists of two parts:

  • The initial contract is a one-time commitment awarded over four (or five) years on a monthly/quarterly/annual basis

    • Policies vary slightly from company to company. Some companies don’t start paying employees quarterly (what the industry calls a “one-year cliff”) until the first year on the job, while others start paying them in the first month

    • Not all companies pay equally, such as 5% and 15% for the first two years and 40% for each of the next two. Snap has a similar rule

  • Every year new

    • Every year, the company issues new stock based on employee performance, also over four years

    • Not all companies give Refresh their first year on the job

    • Uber treats Refresh as part of Bonus, divided into Cash Bonus and Stock Bonus

    • Refresh regulations vary from company to company and will be discussed on a case-by-case basis as market conditions change

Refresh is an expectation of employees’ performance over the next four years.

other

In addition to the above mentioned points, there will be a cash signing fee at the beginning of entry, which will be paid within a certain time after entry, mainly determined by negotiation (whether there is no competing offer and how much the company wants to recruit you).

In addition, there are the benefits that tech companies are known for, such as health insurance, free meals a day, gyms, swimming pools, free museum tickets/discounts, car insurance, home insurance, rental cars, car purchases, skiing, a range of corporate rates, free/discounted dry cleaning, haircuts, physicals, Commuter benefit.

With the exception of large companies:

  • Microsoft, Linen and Apple don’t have free canteen.

  • What Netflix does is it gives its employees all cash, lots and lots of cash

02

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The programmer Level

* Photo from: https://levels.fyi

Major technology companies have different levels, and several major companies can basically convert and refer to each other.

For fresh graduates, those who work for one year and change jobs or contract workers who become regular employees, they will get L3/E3/T3/SDE I/IC I and other levels (different names in each company), basically Junior levels. Basic expectations are as follows:

  • Complete assigned tasks under certain guidance

  • Participate in system design under certain guidance

  • The output quality is ok

  • New rampup can be six months to a year

PhD graduates and those who work for two, three or four years and then change jobs will get L4, E4, T4, SDE II, IC II and other levels. Median level is expected:

  • Complete challenging tasks with minimum Guidance

  • Complete the system design with minimum Guidance

  • Gradually become a go-to person for some projects.

  • High quality of work done

  • Best: Can work independently, including project system design, implementation, coordination, testing, internal testing, QA, documentation, experimentation, release, etc

  • New rampup can last from three months to six months

The next level is the senior level, L5/E5/T5/ senior. The time required for each company to reach this level varies greatly, and the corresponding opportunity component becomes important. The basic expectations are as follows:

  • Be independent and complete the tasks mentioned above

  • Be the technical expert of the team to solve ambiguous problems and come up with perfect/sub-perfect/temporary/long-term solutions

  • The project leader, or the person in charge of a product branch, leads the team to complete the system design, development, testing and a series of work

  • Self-driven, it can also drive and influence people around it, and set self-priority and group priority

  • Besides writing code, I pay more attention to the stability, expansibility, security, monitoring, alarm, documentation, and cross-group, cross-department and even cross-company coordination

  • Better status: coordinate resources within the group, strive for internal and external resources, recruit people, lead people, expand scope

After senior citizens, companies have different names for level, such as Staff, Principal, or just numbers. At this level, personal ability is one aspect, and personal energy, time willing to pay, opportunities and other factors will play a more important role. The expectations I understand are:

  • Do all of the above

  • Get more involved in strategy, resources, quarterly/annual priorities

  • Standardize the work of the whole team, improve the work efficiency, output level and work scope of the team

  • Cultivate the team and help your partners grow

  • * Can solve problems that no one has solved before and move into new or very challenging areas

  • * Can manage 10+ people

  • * You can be an expert in your field and have an impact on the future of your field

* Sufficient non-necessary conditions

After this level, I will write it later when I have a chance…

If you transfer Individual Contributor to People Manager or Teach Lead Manger (TLM), L5 generally corresponds to M0, L6 to M1, and so on.

Special note:

  • The above is just a common classification of levels in some large companies. For the senior level, Uber also divides it into 5. A and 5. B, Microsoft has 63 and 64, and Netflix has all senior level employees

  • At present, there is no phenomenon that programmers must transfer to management when they reach the age of 35. Whether they transfer or not depends on many factors, such as opportunities, personal personality and family. I am surrounded by many high level IC, WLB is very good, and there is no need to deal with a lot of dirty work. There is no strong correlation with title

03

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summary

The reason why I write these, one is because of my friend’s recent job-hopping, and the other is to record my experience of climbing the ladder in a big company in the past year. In the Bay Area, there are a lot of smart people around, and no matter how good you were, you can always find people who are better and work harder than you.

Of course, life is not just about work. If I can find my favorite project, keep myself in an active learning state, have the courage to step out of the comfort zone in front of me, know the current market demand and keep alert, the final results will not be too bad.

Tell so much, hope to be able to look for a job and want to enter a big company’s children can help. If you have a question, or need to be promoted within Google/Linkedin/Facebook, please leave a comment on our official account!

Disclaimer:

  • The above are only personal views and summaries and do not represent any company or organization

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