Google / Microsoft / Amazon compensation

[FreshLife]

Does anyone has data points for compensation in Vancouver / Toronto for dev positions in Google / Microsoft / Amazon for various levels (or preferably for Staff in Google, L65-L67 in Microsoft and L6 / Principal in Amazon)?

My current comp in Bay area is around ~$420k USD (~200k base + ~30k bonus + ~190k annual equity). How much pay cut should I realistically expect?

Thanks so much for your answers in advance.

 

[DEEPCUR]

Have you checked glass door?

 

[FreshLife]

@DEEPCUR I have never seen Glassdoor reflect reality. As a first hand experience, the numbers are way off for the places I have worked at.
The better options for US are paysa.com and Blind app. But paysa.com does not cover Canada and didn't find many people from Canada on the Blind app.

 

[axolotl]

Does anyone has data points for compensation in Vancouver / Toronto for dev positions in Google / Microsoft / Amazon for various levels (or preferably for Staff in Google, L65-L67 in Microsoft and L6 / Principal in Amazon)?

My current comp in Bay area is around ~$420k USD (~200k base + ~30k bonus + ~190k annual equity). How much pay cut should I realistically expect?

Thanks so much for your answers in advance.

Why do you still want to work?

With your current salary, you should be able to retire after having worked and saved for two years. You should stop thinking about your career plan and start thinking about your life plan.

 

[lankyfellow]

Why do you still want to work?

With your current salary, you should be able to retire after having worked and saved for two years. You should stop thinking about your career plan and start thinking about your life plan.

axolotl, I think FreshLife has a legit and genuine question. Anybody who is accustomed to the bay area for some time, these figures wouldn't whack his/her brains out. This is practical and more importantly you may not be aware of the tax madness, high cost of living and crazy real estate in bay area.

If you think living in bay area Freshlife can save a fortune in 2 years that is suffice enough for the rest of their life, a quick ring to any of your silicon valley friends may enlighten you.

Anyways, I believe FreshLife is realistic in setting up his/her expectations for a pay cut that is obvious moving out of bay area.They are just gauging the paycuts to deem their move decision fit.

And regarding "stop working".... oh well

 

[axolotl]

axolotl, I think FreshLife has a legit and genuine question. Anybody who is accustomed to the bay area for some time, these figures wouldn't whack his/her brains out. This is practical and more importantly you may not be aware of the tax madness, high cost of living and crazy real estate in bay area.

If you think living in bay area Freshlife can save a fortune in 2 years that is suffice enough for the rest of their life, a quick ring to any of your silicon valley friends may enlighten you.

Anyways, I believe FreshLife is realistic in setting up his/her expectations for a pay cut that is obvious moving out of bay area.They are just gauging the paycuts to deem their move decision fit.

And regarding "stop working".... oh well

I asked a Silicon Valley friend, an ex-colleague at Twitter, a while ago "How much do you need to retire?" His answer was 5 million USD. I asked him where's the number's from? He said "Let's assume there's a 2% annual return..."

I worked in Silicon Valley myself and I know the trap that most people fall into. No matter what's your income, there's something to spend your money on, be it a bigger house, a better school for your children, a faster car, etc. You are wired into believing you need all that shit because that's what others around you want.

Here's what I would do.

1. Live as cheaply as I can and save as much as possible.
2. Once I have enough capital, move to a cheaper place.
3. Make sure my income is greater than my expenses without having to work much at all.
4. Meanwhile let my capital grow by investing in world stock indices. I won't touch my investment and withdraw any money from it, until I really need it. (I'll explain what I mean by "really need it".)

Regarding 1, I lived in Walnut Creek and paid 1,750 USD a month for a 1-bedroom instead of 2,400 USD for a studio in SF. I bought a 2,000-USD 2001 Chrysler instead of a 20,000-USD whatever. I used different cash-back cards for different categories. I opened bank accounts to get a few hundred dollars for free and then closed them. I made it very clear to everyone around me that I was cheap so no one would bother to ask me to party around and waste money.

Regarding 2, I now live in Canada where health care is "free" and you don't need to send you children to some expensive private school. In Toronto, I am living on less than 1,000 CAD per month for all my expenses, including housing, food, and whatever you can think of. I may move to Quebec because they have wonderful child-care subsidies, which may make sense when I have children.

Regarding 3, I plan to either buy or rent a house (depending on the rental yield obviously) and let my partner run airbnb, which should cover all our living expenses. Given how cheap I am, it is not an ambitious goal.

Regarding 4, I told my boss in January that I was leaving Twitter, when I reached 500,000 USD liquid assets. (Ironically I got promoted after that.) I knew by doing nothing but investing passively in a well-diversified world stock portfolio, in the long run its value will double every ten years. Plus the inheritance that I will eventually get from my parents, I'll become a multi-millionaire sooner or later.

Here's what I meant by "really need it". I plan to live for ever. I believe or at least hope the technology of immortality, or more likely before it, rejuvenation, will become available before I die. But it will be expensive in the beginning. So I will need the money. (If I die before it happens, I'll have my brain frozen and that will also cost a lot of money.)

What I honestly think is that there are too many people who are smart enough to make good salary, yet not smart enough to figure out what they should or can do with the salary.

(Regarding crazy real estate prices: no one is forcing you to buy a house in the Bay Area, or in Toronto or Vancouver. Use your brain to figure out what's the best way to spend your money. Actually, there are no good ways to spend your money, only good ways to invest your money. I don't consider speculation on property price appreciation investment. Get this book and learn about discounted cash flows and valuation. Such concepts are actually also useful for personal financial planning.)

 

[lankyfellow]

I asked a Silicon Valley friend, an ex-colleague at Twitter, a while ago "How much do you need to retire?" His answer was 5 million USD. I asked him where's the number's from? He said "Let's assume there's a 2% annual return..."

I worked in Silicon Valley myself and I know the trap that most people fall into. No matter what's your income, there's something to spend your money on, be it a bigger house, a better school for your children, a faster car, etc. You are wired into believing you need all that shit because that's what others around you want.

Here's what I would do.

1. Live as cheaply as I can and save as much as possible.
2. Once I have enough capital, move to a cheaper place.
3. Make sure my income is greater than my expenses without having to work much at all.
4. Meanwhile let my capital grow by investing in world stock indices. I won't touch my investment and withdraw any money from it, until I really need it. (I'll explain what I mean by "really need it".)

Regarding 1, I lived in Walnut Creek and paid 1,750 USD a month for a 1-bedroom instead of 2,400 USD for a studio in SF. I bought a 2,000-USD 2001 Chrysler instead of a 20,000-USD whatever. I used different cash-back cards for different categories. I opened bank accounts to get a few hundred dollars for free and then closed them. I made it very clear to everyone around me that I was cheap so no one would bother to ask me to party around and waste money.

Regarding 2, I now live in Canada where health care is "free" and you don't need to send you children to some expensive private school. In Toronto, I am living on less than 1,000 CAD per month for all my expenses, including housing, food, and whatever you can think of. I may move to Quebec because they have wonderful child-care subsidies, which may make sense when I have children.

Regarding 3, I plan to either buy or rent a house (depending on the rental yield obviously) and let my partner run airbnb, which should cover all our living expenses. Given how cheap I am, it is not an ambitious goal.

Regarding 4, I told my boss in January that I was leaving Twitter, when I reached 500,000 USD liquid assets. (Ironically I got promoted after that.) I knew by doing nothing but investing passively in a well-diversified world stock portfolio, in the long run its value will double every ten years. Plus the inheritance that I will eventually get from my parents, I'll become a multi-millionaire sooner or later.

Here's what I meant by "really need it". I plan to live for ever. I believe or at least hope the technology of immortality, or more likely before it, rejuvenation, will become available before I die. But it will be expensive in the beginning. So I will need the money. (If I die before it happens, I'll have my brain frozen and that will also cost a lot of money.)

What I honestly think is that there are too many people who are smart enough to make good salary, yet not smart enough to figure out what they should or can do with the salary.

(Regarding crazy real estate prices: no one is forcing you to buy a house in the Bay Area, or in Toronto or Vancouver. Use your brain to figure out what's the best way to spend your money. Actually, there are no good ways to spend your money, only good ways to invest your money. I don't consider speculation on property price appreciation investment. Get this book and learn about discounted cash flows and valuation. Such concepts are actually also useful for personal financial planning.)

axolotl, I bow to this response and really appreciate you taking time to write at length for this.

I may not necessarily agree with each and everything but I certainly respect your thought process. Indeed an interesting outlook. But different people, different priorities and hence different lifestyles.

Its fascinating what Wharton brings in you (if its Wharton effect at all).

 

[axolotl]

Its fascinating what Wharton brings in you (if its Wharton effect at all).

Most Wharton students believe in making a lot of money and spending most of it.

During my first week at Wharton, I attended an info session about student loans for foreign students. I chatted with another student next to me about housing in Philadelphia. He told me that he was to live in center city and pay more than 2,000 USD a month, while he had to take a student loan of more than 100,000 USD at 8% interest rate. I asked why he would do that and he said "because other students live in center city."

I did not have to take a student loan, and chose to live in West Philly and paid less than 500 USD a month.

I have been used to being different since I was a kid. The older I grew, the less I cared about what others thought of me. In some sense, my spending behavior was influenced by Wharton, exactly because most other students behaved in the opposite way.

 

[FreshLife]

Apologies for MIA. I was traveling a bit.

I am not a big spender but not as frugal and organized either. Minor (though costly) things such as living near my workplace, etc matters a lot to me. So, after taxes and expense I don't think I will be able to save enough to retire or make life plans in an year or so.

Though, I do want to get in that position but don't want to wait for it in US either. If with reasonable pay cut I could move earlier then I can assimilate into the Canadian way of life sooner and potentially network and identify right opportunities that may let me follow my passion in the long term. Hence the question.

 

[axolotl]

Apologies for MIA. I was traveling a bit.

I am not a big spender but not as frugal and organized either. Minor (though costly) things such as living near my workplace, etc matters a lot to me. So, after taxes and expense I don't think I will be able to save enough to retire or make life plans in an year or so.

Though, I do want to get in that position but don't want to wait for it in US either. If with reasonable pay cut I could move earlier then I can assimilate into the Canadian way of life sooner and potentially network and identify right opportunities that may let me follow my passion in the long term. Hence the question.

What is your passion? It certainly matters a lot whether you passion costs a lot of money or not.

I don't think Toronto is very different to the Bay Area in terms of social norms.

 

[wolfman2017]

Regarding 2, I now live in Canada where health care is "free" and you don't need to send you children to some expensive private school. In Toronto, I am living on less than 1,000 CAD per month for all my expenses, including housing, food, and whatever you can think of. I may move to Quebec because they have wonderful child-care subsidies, which may make sense when I have children.

How are you living at low cost? I am curious as I would love to save as much as possible.

 

[axolotl]

How are you living at low cost? I am curious as I would love to save as much as possible.

The principles are explained here.

To be more concrete, here are my expenses.

• I spend 1,700 CAD on rent for a 2-bedroom but sublet one bedroom for 950 CAD. I also deduct extra airbnb income (80 CAD per night for my own bed and 30 CAD for a single bed in the living room) from my rent. (You could argue sublet and airbnb should be considered income instead of cost deduction.)
• I spend less than 20 CAD per week on food, because we have free lunch on Tuesday and I pack enough left-over for a few extra days. We have free snacks (fruits, nuts) in the office and I have only one real meal per day for the purpose of weight control. (There's also free oatmeal, energy bars, which are useless to me because I don't eat starch-based food.) Also, if I want to have something fancier (e.g. sushi), I work a bit over-time (by staying till after 7:30pm) and then dinner is paid by my employer. I do grocery at Food Basics. (They have very cheap wild caught salmon!)
• I walk to work and therefore there is no commute cost. The walk takes 35 minutes one way and I often intentionally take a detour to make up 10,000 steps a day and this saves me gym membership.
• Electricity and Internet cost about 80 CAD per month.
• I only use free bank accounts. (I will terminate my CIBC and RBC accounts once the free period is over and keep only Tangerine.)
• Freedom Mobile costs me 37 CAD a month including tax.
• Whenever possible (which means everything except rent and electricity), I use various credit cards which provide between 1% and 2% cash-back. (Tangerine is wonderful. Please use Orange Key 50249261S1 if you decide to open a Tangerine account. It will give you 50 CAD for free.) When I use them for business spendings (mainly team dinners which are a few hundred dollars), I actually make a profit. These small things add up.

BTW, if you have a lot of stuff to ship from the US, I highly recommend www.freightcenter.com. You will need to hire someone to palletize your stuff, find a storage on the US side of the border (e.g. Buffalo NY if you live in Toronto), and finally rent a van to pick them up in the US yourself. It's a bit more work but it will cut your total shipping cost by at least 50% compared to FedEx or UPS.

 

[baolocdo]

Thanks for the detail, axolotl. I'm working in one of the companies the FreshLife mentions about and I'm also wondering how much I'd earn if I move to Canada. Since I'm living in California but not in the Bay Area, what I'm earning is comfortably more than what a comparable engineer in the Bay Area, and I guess the situation would be similar if I move to Canada, especially Waterloo where it's cheaper than Toronto.

 

[wolfman2017]

The principles are explained here.

To be more concrete, here are my expenses.

• I spend 1,700 CAD on rent for a 2-bedroom but sublet one bedroom for 950 CAD. I also deduct extra airbnb income (80 CAD per night for my own bed and 30 CAD for a single bed in the living room) from my rent. (You could argue sublet and airbnb should be considered income instead of cost deduction.)
• I spend less than 20 CAD per week on food, because we have free lunch on Tuesday and I pack enough left-over for a few extra days. We have free snacks (fruits, nuts) in the office and I have only one real meal per day for the purpose of weight control. (There's also free oatmeal, energy bars, which are useless to me because I don't eat starch-based food.) Also, if I want to have something fancier (e.g. sushi), I work a bit over-time (by staying till after 7:30pm) and then dinner is paid by my employer. I do grocery at Food Basics. (They have very cheap wild caught salmon!)
• I walk to work and therefore there is no commute cost. The walk takes 35 minutes one way and I often intentionally take a detour to make up 10,000 steps a day and this saves me gym membership.
• Electricity and Internet cost about 80 CAD per month.
• I only use free bank accounts. (I will terminate my CIBC and RBC accounts once the free period is over and keep only Tangerine.)
• Freedom Mobile costs me 37 CAD a month including tax.
• Whenever possible (which means everything except rent and electricity), I use various credit cards which provide between 1% and 2% cash-back. (Tangerine is wonderful. Please use Orange Key 50249261S1 if you decide to open a Tangerine account. It will give you 50 CAD for free.) When I use them for business spendings (mainly team dinners which are a few hundred dollars), I actually make a profit. These small things add up.

BTW, if you have a lot of stuff to ship from the US, I highly recommend www.freightcenter.com. You will need to hire someone to palletize your stuff, find a storage on the US side of the border (e.g. Buffalo NY if you live in Toronto), and finally rent a van to pick them up in the US yourself. It's a bit more work but it will cut your total shipping cost by at least 50% compared to FedEx or UPS.

Thank you for a very detailed response.

 

[FreshLife]

What is your passion? It certainly matters a lot whether you passion costs a lot of money or not.

I don't think Toronto is very different to the Bay Area in terms of social norms.

I like dabbling into different aspects of technology and life where the end result of the project is some useful / fun end product. Nothing fancy and costly. It may or may not translate into my own startup based on the commercial aspect of the project.

It generally helps to have similar minded people, events and networking opportunities to meet, learn and explore. So, its nice to know that Toronto is similar to Bay area.