For all those asking for advice whether to choose MSFT vs Amzn
Everyone compares Microsoft refreshers to other FAANG refreshers. That's unfair. I may be on the upper end of the spectrum at msft, but I am not a rock star. I consistently get 140% rewards, where 100% is target and 200% is max. If you work hard, 140 is guaranteed at MSFT, albeit a bad manager.
Here are the reasons why msft refreshers seem like π₯, but it's not the case.
Reason 1: MSFT base pays are much higher than Amazon and other FAANG counterparts. I am at L66 and my base is 240K. I've heard FB comes close, but somewhere around 220K.
Amzn maxes out at 160K for my level. This accounts for almost 80-100K cash difference. Go buy amzn stock with this if you really think amzn is going to grow like nuts.
Reason 2: higher cash bonus. This year, I got a cash bonus of 62K. Amzn has no cash bonus. Fb and Google is around half this number for e6. Again, more cash go buy more stocks.
Reason 3: our stock refreshers once you reach level 65 and above are decent. I got refreshers of 100k at L66. My friends get somewhere around 175K at L67.
This adds up to total comp of 400K with stellar stock growth that appreciates annual comp to close to 500K.
Reason 4: our MS poll (an annual internal poll) might be useless for many years, but I've been in this company for the past decade and when all employees cry about something, they end up taking care of us. Back in 2011, all our base pays got a 20% bump to adjust to market conditions. Back in 2018, all of us got 80-100K in special stock award- which has now doubled to 200k.
Reason 5: if you have a family of 3, 2 of whom you claim as dependents, amzn charges 3k per year per dependent for health insurance - 6K. Total net value of msft benefits including 401k match, espp, stay fit and health benefits adds up to 20K per year.
Only F/G can beat MSFT in all these regards and still make sense for someone to leave us. For me personally, the only way I will go to Amazon is if they offer me more than 25% bump in TC at 400k. Otherwise, it's not worth it.
Lastly, unlike amzn and f, there is no pip culture. We do give 0 rewards and low rating for poor performers and it's not a good place to be because hr would pip you when they do the routine lay off once in a few years( last time in 2015). However, if you are on a visa(like me), I can be stress free about job security.
The main difference I see between msft and amzn is that in msft, you as an individual have control of how you want to take your career forward in lower levels. In Amazon, you don't. You are forced to do what the manager thinks is right for you.
I do agree our pay is low for L61,62,63 bands and that's where we lose folks to amzn. But the incentive for you guys is to speed through those levels and prove your worth to reach 65 asap. It can be done within 6 years if you have good work ethics in a team like azure or o365.
Update:.
I forgot to mention 1 last point:
Amzn fixes your target compensation. If you earn more due to stock growth, you get no refreshers. They do not allow their employees to enjoy the fruits of their stock doing well..
In Microsoft, people who were Principal and partner 5 years back are multi millionaires now. I personally know a couple who received 400K SSA in 2016 at level 67, whose comp is now over a million.
Oh that reminds me. After 67, you are eligible for something called DCP - deferred compensation plan where you defer your base and bonus to a later time in retirement to reduce your taxes now.
comments
L64 at 205K here.
Where did you hear this? Because its not true in the slightest unless its a vindictive manager who put someone on dev list to force them to stay on the team (which is not common, regardless what you think Blind says). Its actually easier to grow at the lower levels than L8+ due to VP influence and you have to be making a very big global impact to be seeing growth at sr mgr and above.
It sometimes comes at the detriment of productivity but it creates a culture of happiness among employees.
With that said, I still decided to leave MSFT. For me, it was due to my desire for continual accelerated career growth.Most people on my shoes would stay put knowing that they could get a minimum of 400k a year. Oh well, yolo!
There are quite many companies paying 600k+ with stock appreciation for L66 equivalents, not just F/G
1. Pay: MSFT TC ~250k - AMZN TC: ~600k. Enough said.
2. Cash bonus - Yes. MSFT wins!
3. Stock - well, well. Let's just be honest and accept that MSFT doesn't come anywhere near stock grants, or appreciation of AMZN. Both MSFT and AMZN have a strict curve assigned to how rewards are granted. If you're not top tier, your refreshers are shit. There is a reason why there are so many MSFT peanuts refresher threads. AMZN has great refreshers for people in top tier. Someone commented on other thread if they've seen anyone at AMZN who've been for over 15-20 years, the answer is yes, and a shit load of them. And these are the people who're well taken care of and are busy building great things.
4. MS Poll - This is a load of bull crap. MS poll is a farce of a process to give engineers the impression that leadership is interested in what you think. But in reality, it is just another tool that is used to fit the bell curve for managers. There is so much appeasement and toxicity built around this poll across the company, it is revolting. AMZN has connections - very similar to MS Poll - but happens round the year. It is very focused, and takes into account many factors in how the questions are created to derive day-by-day insights into team/management/and to a very small extent organization's effectiveness.
5. Benefits - No doubt MSFT exceeds in benefits hands down. Microsoft provides Blue Cross Heritage Plus plan, and every other company around seattle is on Heritage plan. Which means if you have significant health expenses, Microsoft will save you about 6k (lower deductible - 6500 vs 9000, higher HSA contribution, etc.).
Add ESPP, StayFit, and additional 2%, 401k match, and you're kind of looking at ballpark of 15-20k benefit, depending on your base salary.
6. PIP culture - Well, a great thing about being L7 IC is that you get to participate in talent discussions first hand. I will agree there is pip, but at least in my org's director level (org of ~250, >100 engineers) there is no strict quota to fill. There is inclination towards finding those who're not meeting the bar, and help them grow, or manage out. Contrast this to MSFT, where there isn't a focused program to help people grow. Managers just ignore such engineers and hope they'd leave soon enough. This leads to degraded team performance, dissatisfaction, and lack of trust. At Amazon, at least there is a bias towards making the team better and giving all the right opportunities.
7. Individual control on career vs Directed career - Well, I hate to break it to you, but Amazon is very decentralized in terms of what gets built and who gets to drive it. Amazon has a bias towards action, whereas Microsoft has bias towards consensus. Both are appropriate to the kind of culture the companies have, but given these biases ICs at all levels get more freedom to work on what they want and deliver it. My decision to move, was in part based on such anecdotes from people i knew who moved to AMZN at various SDE levels. In fact at AMZN ICs can say no to a manager and still deliver what they want and get rewarded for it, whereas at MSFT this will be a career suicide.
Allow me to call out a few things OP conveniently ignored while doing this comparison:
a. Politics - The consensus building at MSFT comes at the price of highly politicized environment. The higher you go, the more politically entrenched you get. The fight across Office and Azure on ownership and revenue sharing would be hilarious, if people's careers didn't go up in flames with it.
b. Bias - Managers are f***** biased and prejudiced - and to overcorrect it, the forced diversity initiatives is now going to make sure a certain section of engineers are affected unfairly.
c. Customer obsession - At microsoft everyone really likes to throw around how customer obsessed they are, and all, but you've got to see that obsession first hand at amazon. The practice of anecdotal feedback and ignoring it is rampant at MSFT. Contrast that with Amazon, where the driving principle is that if anecdote doesn't agree with data, then there's something wrong in measurement. There is such a passion to solve a customer's problem, at times it feels unreal. If you truly like to work for your customers, Msft is not the place for it.
d. Building great things - MSFT is pretty crap on innovation as organizationally we discourage risk taking. At AMZN risk taking is heavily encouraged, and the concept of smaller fast moving teams allows them to try out newer ideas quickly and build in the spirit of fail fast, which has resulted in so many new innovations from AMZN compared to how MSFT has been trailing in almost all areas.
e. Scope - At AMZN levels come with exponential scope. Senior engineers are like L65s at MSFT, and drive large product/platforms. PEs are - and it still feels surreal to me - considered "unicorns from heaven" (as one of the SDE2s commented recently in my team) - and the scope and responsibility a PE commands, is mind blowing. There is an avg. 1 PE for >75 engineers. I am a single PE for over 100 engineers. As you grow higher, the scope, responsibility and comp all go through the roof.
To close - This was a great move for me, and though I carry over great memories and relationships from my time at MS, if I had to do over, I'd not be stuck there for so long.
To each their own.
@ofajfn Iβm not sure what to make of your comment here, and other borderline condescending ones that youβve been replying to others who didnβt agree with you, and the dm you sent to me!
@amsou911 and others, Iβm happy to answer any questions if youβre looking to move. My immediate team has openings across all bands and weβre building some cool stuff!
But to clarify FB at E6 does pay much better, I am 240k base, received 300k refresher, 62k cash and my TC is 730k. These are very standard numbers for E6/M1s at Facebook and nothing out of the ordinary at all. Again no disrespect to MSFT but i do want to make sure folks reading this have the correct information.
Zuckling if base stock award is 220k and base bonus is 20%, your paper comp for a given year is $508. Your cash comp is higher because of appreciation and since youβve been a strong performer. But letβs not compare apples to oranges (especially if apples to apples still looks pretty good) π€·π»ββοΈ