Hi all, Recently received a verbal offer from Amazon for L4 SWE within an Operations team. I'm not too sure what to say as far as salary expectations to be honest, as I'm transitioning in from a more Project Management role at Capital One. Levels.fyi seems to show that average base for L4 is ~130k, but other L4 posts here are mentioning bases of 150+. Currently in TX, and hoping to move to the west coast - Recruiter mentioned that TC cap for L4 is 170k, and that relocation assistance is likely not available if the whole team is remote. A friend of mine mentioned it might just be best to ask for 145-150, but again, not too sure what to expect, or how to negotiate here, especially around RSUs & Signon. Does anyone have any advice/tips? Current TC: 80k Relevent YoE: 0 Total YoE: 2 #amazon #swe #TC
L4 is SDE2 right? In SEA SDE2 pays like 3-4x your current TC
no L4 is SDE I at Amazon. Amazon's levels start from L4
How did you approach your interview prep LC-wise? Did you focus more on the Amazon tagged?
Prepped LC to make the career shift about 1.5 years ago. Spent most afternoons after work & most weekends picking up DS&A in general. Definitely brutal process, but I just couldn't see myself on my current career path. Started applying earlier this year and got a few interviews: - Meta E4/SWE2 for their RAISE program (Made it to final round - Didnt get to interview bc freeze) - Google Early Career (Hit another freeze - Stuck in HC until 2023) - Twitch (Again final round, but was canceled - Role filled) - Roblox (Made it past Karat, but ghosted after HM call) - SpaceX (Got to final but I pulled out after hearing WLB stories..) - Amazon (Failed first final round around Feb - Passed this time around after 6 month cooldown) My LC prep was focused knowing the Blind75 forwards and backwards, and also around FB and Google/DP tagged questions when those interviews were happening; My first final with Amazon just had LC questions from the Blind75, but I was completely clueless with OOP. This time around, I made sure to study OOP, but still struggled a bit during that interview. Got lucky to get the offer tbh - Other technical rounds were non-LC, but generic string-parsing questions/simple functions + follow ups (LC easy/easy-med if you want to use that scale). Also, for what it's worth, I also made sure to have better LP answers this time around, and so that might have made the difference. Side note - had interviews with Uber & MSFT last year but didn't know much about LC and bombed so hard that neither company seemed to want to give me another chance lmao. Also didn't use referrals. Have a long-term goal to go into education and so I thought I might as well try to brute force this to see how hard it could be without having good/reliable connections. I definitely got lucky, but it's doable; Larger companies seem more flexible to take a chance- Don't think I heard back from any small org for SWE tho lol.
Here's the LC pic
New grads have fixed base (non negotiable) at 129k for 2022 (outside of bay area/nyc). With stock and bonus you're looking at 170k as a new grad. But since you're not a new grad and industry hire you can probably push to 190k, over 200k if you have competing offers and good experience
This is super helpful - Thank you!
Why would you want to move west coast with that kind of offer
Grew up in TX and think it'd be nice to explore somewhere else. West coast seems cool, at least to try. If it's too tough financially I might move after a few months since the role is fully remote. I get that it might not be for everyone, but who knows, might meet some cool people.
I feel. I would try east coast bro but that's just me. Do you already have a family?