Am I overpaid?
For some reason I’ve been kinda paranoid and nervous because of my TC. I’m afraid that it’s too high for me and that I would be the first one to be laid off should anything happen to my company. To give you a little background, I busted my ass to practice interviewing and became pretty good at it. I went from failing to crushing. Could solve any LC in my sleep and crush behavioral interviews easily. I also learned - through tons of practice - to negotiate very well. That lead me to some great offers. I accepted an offer from a unicorn startup that has billions in funding. They gave me an offer that was very impressive and had a great team so I accepted it. But now I feel very scared. I feel scared that they will have too much expectations from me. I feel scared that they will lay me off should anything happen to the company because I am over paid. Please share your thoughts. Thank you About me: 1 yoe, high school drop out (learned to code from a good bootcamp). Long story short, I did a few years of labor intense work after dropping out of hs. My back was killing me because I had to do a lot of heavy lifting. Growing up in Silicon Valley I just felt that there was so much more I could do so I decided to learn to code and then became obsessed with it. I’m in my mid twenties. Offer $160k base $250k equity (4 years vest) $10k sign on
No you should be paid more than this if what you said is true (any lc in dream)
How is your equity structured? Options, RSUs, or something else? Billions in funding means heavy dilution, which can affect Options value adversely. That said, I would strongly advise attempting to live on half your income (max out $19,500 pre-tax 401k, rest in fairly-liquid savings vehicles), because it is easier than you would think to look back and wonder where it all went.
3600 RSUs valued at $70 per share. I know it sounds like high valuation but there’s a competitor that’s public and is valued at that level and we recently beat their market share so I don’t think it’s over over valued.
Thanks for the tips!
How do you practice negotiating well?
It becomes easy after failing 30 on-site interviews at small shitty companies that no one would every want to work at and (in retrospect) have super low bar for entry and easy interview process. I was about to give up on multiple occasions but it was that or continue working in shitty jobs in depressing conditions and breaking my back with so much heavy lifting.
I need to do more interviews at smallfry companies.
That's just the impostor syndrome speaking. They're paying you what they are willing to. Just because you aced the interview doesn't mean they have unrealistic expectations in the real job. Interview is a pretty bad indicator of real world performance. Just relax and follow your passion. It got you this far. Congrats!
Thank you! Feel good to read your comment knowing you’re from Microsoft and are saying this. I just feel like I didn’t deserve this knowing that people with much higher yoe and MS in CS get a lot less.
there are a ton of people in tech that are undeserving over paid and ton of deserving under paid. Tech is not a level field and there are so many factors that decide compensation. What you are getting is fair. Dont feel bad just because you are a dropout. college doesnot gaurantee smartness intelligence sincerity accountability or any of those qualities. You will do well.
How do you “crush” behavioral questions with 1 yoe?
I worked at a small 2 people startup and built out the entire mobile app from ground up. I had a lot of interesting technical challenges that I was ready to talk about. Also had interesting stories about my transition from working in construction to coding. I guess my background was impressive to some interviewers which is how I was able to get good at behavioral questions. The real challenge was Leetcode. Just took me a lot of practice and self discipline
You feel insecure because of your education background. Don’t be! I’m especially impressed if one of my colleagues has a unique background for him to get to where he is. Being humble is good as it keeps your feet on the ground, please don’t think you’re less of a person or less competent only because you didn’t go to college. Congrats and good luck!
I'd like to give you some advice. Be as honest and natural as possible in an interview if you don't want to disappoint. Nothing is worse at the start of an career to fail badly, because you set expectations to be too bold. You risk loosing trust and your reputation very early on. I'd honestly be worried. If you took on too much of responsibility your place won't last long at that unicorn. If it was a big corporate your odds of surviving a year or two with this approach might be higher.
I don't know if you're overpaid but you're not being paid that much.
The attitude you have speaks volumes about why a company would want to hire you! Dont worry and just work hard and take the opportunity to shine
400k tc with 4yoe. Am i overpaid?
Yes, most of blind is But hey I'd love to be overpaid haha
Yes, overpaid. So, be happy.