So...
What's the paycheck like?
What's the paycheck like?
> I’m making an amount of money equivalent to my Google total compensation package
He goes on to write,
> My Google compensation was dominated by stock grants, so it varied wildly. What I’m earning now per year is: slightly less than my first year at Google (which included a significant signing bonus), drastically less than I earned in 2021 (when the signing stock grant overlapped with three stock refreshes, and $GOOG was at record highs), and more than I would have made in 2022 had I stayed (even accounting for all benefits on one side and the salary of my assistant on the other side).
The biggest cost involved in full time open source work is opportunity cost.
If you have the skills to maintain a popular open source project, you could almost certainly be earning $250,000/year or more at one of the big tech companies.
That is vague. A specific number would have been much better.
According to levels.fyi [1] as of Feb 2023, a Senior Software Engineer at Google (L5) could negotiate a compensation package around USD $193k (base) + $119k (RSU) + (one-time) $26k signing bonus.
I have talked to Filippo in person and I have the impression that he was a Staff Software Engineer (aka. Google L6), which are supposedly able to negotiate around USD $244k (base) + $187k (RSU) + (one-time) $35k signing bonus.
These numbers are averages based on verified offer letters and RSU grant documents that Google employees have submitted to that website during the last couple of years, but I think the numbers do not account for annual RSU refreshers, performance bonus, or stock performance. That is what Filippo is referring to as “it varied wildly”. I still would have liked to see a comparison with real numbers, at least the base salary.
It's complicated, but I think they account for it in a way that gives a reasonably accurate picture in the steady state. levels.fyi for L6 says salary $244k, stock $187k/year, bonus $35k. Every year as a Google L6, I got a compensation letter with roughly that salary, equity refresh, and annual bonus. Each equity refresh vested monthly over the next four years. That means 4+ years in, you receive over the course of a year stock which was valued (at various times in the last four years) at about that equity refresh in total. Actual value when you receive it varies much more because that's what stocks do. And letters can vary more from year to year based on performance multiplier, you can get spot bonuses in addition to the annual bonus described in the letter, you may get promoted to level n+1 (or leave) before reaching level n's steady state, etc. On the flip side, it seems likely that along with the layoffs this year they didn't give anyone big annual bonuses or equity refreshes. I moved on a while ago so haven't asked.
Anyway, it's good money, and I'm really happy to see someone able to match it as a full-time open source maintainer. Filippo seems pretty exceptional though; I hope good open source compensation becomes normal.