Hacker News Reader

Comment by thrway127627 | Hacker News Reader

The article seems to be using "cloud engineering" to mean what I would call "data engineering" or "distributed systems engineering". If so then the numbers they're throwing around seem high but attainable. I would call myself a "data engineer" (I build ad servers, recommendation engines, etc for clients) and have been getting offers in the low 300s for full time work with about five years of experience.

View on HN

Interesting. What does your typical day look like? Does it involve a fair bit of ML/algorithms and making them scale horizontally?

Yep, exactly. 70% working with colleagues to design ML algorithms (which is mostly thinking of clever ways to extract features, to be honest), and 30% implementing said algorithms in a way that scales horizontally.

Does the low 300s number include the value of offered equity, benefits etc? Or it is just the base salary?

I don't know what a particular recruiter told a particular reporter, but in general, benefits (including benefits with fairly calculable cash value) are generally not included in numbers in the US but base salary, anticipated bonus, and present value of restricted stock grants in public companies are generally fair things to quote at people.

Does $300k sound reasonably achievable for an infrastructure engineer with a few years experience? Well... yeah, yeah, it does. Literally tens of thousands of engineers at AppAmaGooFaceSoft have that package.

This might help support the argument I've seen you make tons of time. You can use h1b data to show real people who don't need to raise their hand on hacker news and declare their income publicly.

Here's H1b data for Google and Facebook. Lots of people are above the 200k mark. Lots above 300k with options and RSUs etc, I'll wager a bet.

http://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=google&job=&city=&year=All

http://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=Facebook&job=&city=&year=Al...

It includes vesting equity, but not benefits; in other words, it's what shows up on my W2. This is usually what recruiters and employees at AmaGooFaceSoft refer to as "total comp".

Thanks for the clarification. Makes sense to call it "total comp" for employees at AmaGoogFaceSoft, since the stock has a liquid market.

What is your background prior to working in this field?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com