I am based in Toronto (moved from US) and recently accepted a remote offer for a L63 SDE position at Microsoft. My team is partly based in Vancouver, Seattle. Given the market situation, I want to stick with a bigger more established firm. When I look at this, in Toronto I think there are only two companies that fall into this criteria: MSFT and Google (please name other if you know). Now, I am not very well paid (at least that what I think but I could we wrong) . How much compensation increase I could except if I get to L64 position say in 2 years ? My current TC is 150 CAD base, 200k RSU in USD over 4 years, 75kCAD joining bonus (50 + 25), 0-30% performance bonus (u general get 15% most of the time). This comp pushes my first year TC to 290 Second year : 265 and 3rd, 4th year to 250CAD . YOE is 9 years. Should I try to stick long term at MSFT with this TC and grow up the ladder or should I try to work hard and make a quick move to may be Google (wonder if they pay me any better) Another reason to stick to a big firm is that eventually I want to take an internal transfer to India and for any company to relocate me to India with a good comp, they would like to see me stick with them for atleast 2 years and perform well. So if I plan to move to India in next 3 years I have to figure out that company in next 6-8 months.
Amazon has 1000+ devs in Toronto. Pays top of the market for external hires in Canada.
Seems like you just got the offer. Microsoft is a great place to build a long term career. You’ll almost always make more money than the previous year. If you face a cliff after a few years, get a competing offer and they’ll match or get very close to it. You’ll need to have a good performance history for that.
The difference between 63 and 64 is not significant, the big bump happens at 65.
My recruiter told me that your base should go fron 150 to 175 on ur promotion. Also do you know how much on average can it take to get to L64 ?
Promo increase is usually 10%, so 150k -> 165k. But if that happens at annual, you'll also get your merit increase at the same time. They may be doing some funny math based on merit increases this year, which were larger than normal. I know 63s that are already making 175 though, which is why I say it isn't a big difference between the levels. The stock grant targets for 63 and 64 are pretty similar too, and the bonus target (15% of "bonus eligible salary") is the same for both levels, but jumps to 20% at 65.
I got to 64 in less than 18 months with almost ~15 % hike, just 3-4 % more hike then usual annual hike , so yeah not much difference in compensation but fair difference in expectations at 64
If you want to earn more, you are in the wrong place. Welcome to the country club!
Yoe?
Your pay for L63 is reasonable at Microsoft. If you want more $$, jump. L64 doesn’t make much more.