> No, we don’t pay as much as Meta.
So, essentially, you are seeking special treatment from US citizens. I’m not saying this is always unreasonable, but you’re in the territory of a centrally planned economic decision, and in the US philosophy that is supposed to be done minimally.
Maybe the right thing is for your company to shut down or change their line of business, freeing up the labor for Meta.
By this reasoning no charities should exist (they pay less than commercial orgs) and even people who are willing to work for less in order to feel good about their contribution should not be allowed to.
It’s a very cynical, even nihilistic view.
As a country we have decided to let the market decide what to prioritize. Who are we to judge "creepy VR avatars" are less important if people are willing to fair and square pay for them? If they are creepy, don't pay for them.
> No charities should exist.
No that is not the appropriate conclusion. People are of course free to work for less and balance their circumstances. If they want to volunteer for a charity by choice, more power to them. But no, using taxpayer money to fund "charities" is by-and-large corruption in my book.
> It’s a very cynical, even nihilistic view.
If we are doing labels, yours is a very communistic, statist, view.
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P.S. regardless of your PoV, I like that you acknowledge my core point: that the OP is seeking special treatment in the form of cheap labor from the US. You are simply arguing for that special treatment being justified, not denying that's the core demand.
It’s the engineer who picks the climate change job instead.
Essentially what you’re saying is that due to society not being willing to pay competitively, engineers should take the kick to the nuts and be paid peanuts to make up for societies bad decisions.
Sounds like a pretty stupid decision, frankly.
Working for a company that launches satellites that examine climate change is far less impactful. It's not worth a big pay cut even when you're focusing on altruistic motives.
How many people honestly think it's a good idea to donate to a for-profit company?
> It's not worth a big pay cut even when you're focusing on altruistic motives. [Citation unavailable as its purely subjective]
I'm talking about level of benefit, which is not subjective.
Edit: Also I just reread the original comment and realized the climate change measurement was listed as a negative, so for the two citation neededs I point back at the original post about the company. Donating a single dollar beats a negative.
For the broader analysis, the people that can easily get huge salaries should prioritize donation, and the people that can't should prioritize actually working at a charity.
Instead of going to levels.fyi go to salary.com and choose any major city in the US that is not on the west coast.
No most developers don’t get RSUs or anything else aside from their salaries and maybe a bonus.
And before someone replies that I’m “bitter”. No I’m good, I’m 50. I did my stint at BigTech and I don’t have the shit tolerance level to deal with the politics of any large company.
It's simple: the more picky you are the more you will have to pay. The GP admitted the upper bound of Meta, which is a company that is sustainably operating in the same country. If you cannot compete in a labor market, either raise your product pricing or be more efficient. If not, you will make less profit and/or go out of business, which is an appropriate outcome most of the time.
No one is entitled to their business model.
Offer things that we care about like free health insurance, “unlimited PTO”, a generous 401K match with immediate vesting, etc.
I personally wouldn’t move to Alabama. But many would.
At 50, I need to work. But I don’t need to chase after FAANG salaries. I optimize for my other priorities. As I said in my previous post, I’m not “disdaining what I can’t have”. I’ve been there done that.
There are numerous reasons why AL sucks.
Or google? In 2023 they had a net elimination of 6576 US jobs, but added 5479 H1B.
This isn't a simple market issue, these companies are abusing worker visas to replace Americans from their own companies.
Senior: https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/remote-senior-software-en...
> $178K - $262K/yr
Principal: https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/remote-principal-software...
> $269K - $415K/yr
> The estimated total pay for a Principal Software Engineer is $329,957 per year in the Remote area, with an average salary of $196,928 per year. These numbers represent the median, which is the midpoint of the ranges from our proprietary Total Pay Estimate model and based on salaries collected from our users. The estimated additional pay is $133,029 per year. Additional pay could include cash bonus, commission, tips, and profit sharing.
Sounds like the right ballpark. If you're in a location that doesn't pay as well, remote can pay much better.
Look at salary.com where you can see by cities.
None of the BigTech companies have many remote jobs. Google is even requiring their customer facing professional services department to be in certain cities. That was a bridge too far even for AWS.
There are far more people who need code, than just the people at FAANG companies.
Are you saying that these firms are economically uncompetitive, with META, and should shut shop?
A company with same requirements but not the funding? Absolutely
>There are far more people who need code, than just the people at FAANG companies.
With different requirements you can find way more people.
Ideally, the industry would relocate outside of the US, to a place where they can be competitive.
However, since this defense, they can’t, and will never be competitive.
So defense will languish.
I guess that’s all I have. I can’t see a way out of the situation if we accept your premise.
Defense margins aren’t going to beat social media margins, that too of something like meta.
Requirements are requirements. If you need a hammer, scalpels won’t help.
The US defence budget is ~20x Meta revenues. They can be competitive, but they don't choose to allocate their resources that way.
Really? It's the first time I am hearing US is procuring defense for cheap!
If there is a margin issue, that's an efficiency problem, i.e. the company is being an idiot or deliberately wasteful/stealing (perhaps due to structural problems like overreliance on cost-plus contracts).
