Level

I'm in the position now where I am unhappy with my work and will be making less each year in the future, but am currently overpaid (Facebook). I also switched to remote work in the last year since the SF Bay housing market is just absurd. I decided to lightly explore the market to see what options are available, especially for remote workers. My goal was to obtain an annual total comp of $1m (or close to it). I was expecting this to be a stretch, so I only talked to a handful of companies. # Coinbase By far the most straightforward process. Spoke with a recruiter and then a short behavioral phone screen. They said they could get me $2.6m in stock, which ends up being about $850k-$900k TC. After the phone screen they were ready to move to an onsite interview, but I decided not to pursue it. This ended up being the closest to my target comp, but I wasn't confident in their stock growth. # Amazon Amazon has a separate recruiting chain for higher level engineers, which was a notable improvement over some other places. I ended up doing two behavioral phone screens for leveling (the first did not do a good job exploring my experience and I was pushing them for level 8). I also had two informational calls with a director/vp for two positions that actually fit my profile quite well. The recruiter had originally told me they could get me $3.2m in cash/stock (Amazon's grant is weird) for a TC of $985k. After the various calls, I was shifted to a new recruiter to handle further interviews. This person informed me that the previous comp was only for SF area, and that for remote they could only get me $600k-$650k. They said they could make a special exception to get up to $800k-$850k. This was disappointing as I felt like we had a good match. # Reddit Reddit balked at my comp request, said that maybe they could get me $2m but weren't sure (so probably \~$700k TC). I asked if I could be considered for level 8, to which the recruiter responded they don't have any high level engineering position available. I tried to explore other options at that point, but the recruiter ghosted me. Everything I've seen externally about the company suggests it doesn't have a very good culture, and this experience did nothing to dissuade me of that notion. # Google I've bounced around a couple recruiters with Google. They refused to give me actual comp numbers, but they didn't seem surprised by what I was asking for. I've had a couple information meetings with managers/directors but haven't found a good team match yet. It sounds like they don't have a lot of remote availability. Recruiter told me it'd probably be best to wait until Q1 to look for more remote positions. ​ Throughout this process I also learned that Google changed their vesting for their initial stock grant from 25% per year to 33%, 33%, 22%, 11%. They're doing this to try to mitigate the 4 year cliff, and people being overpaid in years 3-4 based more on luck than performance. It has the benefit that comp isn't changed for the first two years, which means it likely won't affect recruitment very much. I expect more public companies to follow suit with something similar. # Facebook From internal discussions it sounds like if you want to join as a remote worker, your stock package will be cut by the same amount as your base wage (5%-15% depending on location). However this may be negotiable, and the stories I see about people joining at MPK and then immediately switching to remote seem like a silly thing to be happening. Stock refreshers are unaffected by remote work status. # TLDR The tech industry hasn't embraced remote work as much as I had expected. The top tier has limited availability or cuts your wage quite a bit, and companies that have embraced it more fully don't provide top tier wages. Facebook, which already had industry leading wages, is even further out in front of the pack on remote work. ​ Edit: I've been informed that Coinbase's stock grant is basically 4 one year grants that are set each year, meaning that if the stock performs well in the first two years it doesn't help increase your stock payout in the 3rd year. This definitely makes them less attractive.