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Comment by 0xy | Hacker News Reader

>I have yet to hear of a single retention initiative

A large number of big tech companies have had unusual retention initiatives, including Robinhood issuing ad-hoc stock grants after a stock drop, Apple issuing $180k stock grants out of cycle and others.

Apple was considered on the lower end of FAANG-tier salaries, so the grants which were outside of the normal process are unusual.

This isn't an isolated incident. Even companies that pay mid-tier salaries ($300-350k for a senior in the Bay Area) are experiencing above normal attrition.

Attrition is a real problem right now. Hiring is fierce. If you're a senior or staff level engineer, it's a buyer's market.

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Just for anyone outside of the USA reading this, 300k is actually 99th percentile for American developers, regardless of what happens at a select few Bay Area companies.

Most Fortune 500 companies do not even have a procedure to pay that much.

Maybe, but there are a lot of Bay Area companies, and almost all of them are hiring right now. Basically if you’re a good SWE in US you should have no problem getting $300k total comp. Just make sure to warm up your leetcode skills.

"No problem" in HN parlance usually means "Rare staff+ leadership role at outlier FAANG company." Are there actually non-FAANG companies paying that much to non-leveled employees, without massively broken work cultures (we all know who these places are)? Is anyone willing to name one?

Verizon, American Express. There's plenty. One of those listed below is even in Arizona.

As for the "leveled employees" thing, being at terminal level in any FAANG or similar company isn't exactly rocket science. Do you think these people are working on rocket trajectories all day? Nope, they're copy/pasting protobuf specifications and writing a few test suites. Just like working for Verizon or another non-FAANG.

https://www.levels.fyi/offer.html?id=b5f5f5ac-9949-516b-bae1...

https://www.levels.fyi/offer.html?id=b0d24426-d95b-57c8-a0f8...

While Verizon may (or may not) have offered one developer $300k, it’s certainly not the norm: https://www.levels.fyi/company/Verizon/salaries/Software-Eng...

It’s not for AmEx either: https://www.levels.fyi/company/American-Express/salaries/Sof...

False. Even these dubious claims do not suggest that they were comp packages that were offered at hiring (0 years with company). If you refer to these at a hiring negotiation with Verizon or AmEx they will surely pass to the next candidate who will accept 200k or whatever the real maximum is.

You claimed F500s do not ever pay that much. The fact an ancient prehistoric company like Verizon is paying garden variety senior developers $300k disputes that statement. I didn't even have to fish very far to find those examples.

>real maximum

Clearly the real maximum isn't the real maximum if $300k offers are possible. In Arizona, no less.

FAANG currently is in a totally different ball park https://twitter.com/danluu/status/1447997574556880902

Sure, it might be hard to believe people who are just like me make this much for the same type of work, but just 3 years ago I didn't believe people made as much as I do now (in a small startup).

>Attrition is a real problem right now. Hiring is fierce. If you're a senior or staff level engineer, it's a buyer's market.

I believe that should be seller's market, I am selling my services?

$180k over four years, which was the top end of the grant, is a $45k raise. It’s definitely nice to have, but not massive, especially as it was only given to certain high performers. I guess they got to go through the equivalent of two comp cycles this year.

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