Comment by jrockway | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jrockway | Hacker News Reader

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I doubt that he is getting above-market pay. 7 years for a decent bonus to kick in is not what the market does; I got a good bonus my first year at Google and the first year at the startup I quit Google to join. That's the norm. Being relocated to a different part of the country to accept a promotion is also not normal. At any organization interested in retaining engineers, you demonstrate that you're working at the "next level" and get the simple pay increase that that is worth.

I would expect someone with the title "senior engineer" to be getting in the ballpark of $300,000 total compensation. Otherwise, their version of "senior" means something different than what the market leaders call it. If this guy is getting $400,000 a year with the patent bonuses... it's probably money well spent. With the right patents, you can extort Samsung for a few billion here, Apple for a few billion there. $110,000 is pocket change. Just pay the guy that and make it unappealing to leave for Google and get an endless stream of patents that you can have in your back pocket for defense, at the very least.

>I would expect someone with the title "senior engineer" to be getting in the ballpark of $300,000 total compensation.

Nonsense. https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/senior-software-engineer-...

Google is the 1% of payouts. Look on indeed, or any objective source for average senior engineer salaries and you're talking $150 or so in a city.

All those sites I have looked at severely underestimates pay, or maybe only people who are getting shafted and are unhappy contribute data to them. Just look at Google, Apple, and Microsoft on the page you linked. I guarantee you there is no equivalent of a senior developer at any of those companies making <100k in the US.

Just to put some perspective in this comment. It means that you'd also have to move to SF or Silicon Valley and it might surprise you that many people dont wan't to live there. The average salary of a senior engineer is way less. Also, the average company doesn't offer RSUs which is where your numbers might come from.

Your numbers don't apply. If those patents were really that valuable (they generally aren't) and the company had the money to pay "senior engineers" 300k then they wouldn't be cutting the compensation like that to save costs. As quoted, he patent/code in question is worth a measly 25,000$ to the company. It's a joke. Nobody in this whole story is a big deal. There's no billion dollar patents here, for the likes of Google or Samsung to fight over.

The searches they did to recover it suggest it is worth a lot of money. You don;t do all that for a few thousands savings.

When I worked at GM they gave out bonus checks to ideas that saved they money. I believe it was 10% of what they saved in a year.

An idiot bean-counter probably complain about giving an assembly line worker a check for $100,000 despite the fact it not only saved $1,000,000 GM that year, but every year after year as long as the idea is used.

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