Hi, Click bait! Just kidding… but ya it’s long post. TLDR; If I can go from $67k in TC to $330k in a span of 6.5 years. You can too! I wanted to share my career history in an attempt to show others who didn’t start out in FAANG to not be discouraged. Our career is a marathon not a race. Just because you didn’t get that nice internship or job offer right out of college doesn’t mean you’re worthless nor are you behind. I started out behind most of my peers. Now I’m ahead of most of them. Anyways here’s my career progression and I hope this inspire others to not give up. These are all my real numbers that I kept a history of to see how I’m progressing. May 2014 - summer junior year in college $18/hr intern State Farm data analyst State Farm 2015- 2017 System Analyst Year 1 (2015) 61,695.63 10% TC: $67,865 Perf Review (2016): 63,453.80 10% TC: $69,799 Facebook 2017 - 2018 Automation Developer (IC3 not SWE) 2017 Offer: 85,500 10% 23k/4 years TC: $99,800 Reorg (2017) 95,220 10% TC: $110,492 Perf review (2018) 98,264.73 10% $15151/4 years refresher TC: 117,628 Microsoft 2018 - 2020 2018 Offer (L61) 130,000 0-20% 50k/4 years 40k sign-on TC: $155,500 Perf review (2019) 135,400 $11400 $7800/5 years TC: $160,860 Google 2020 - present 2020 Offer (L4) 144,000 15% 204k/4 years (got 166 shares) 20k sign-on TC: $216,600 Perf Review (2020): 146900 $17,200 bonus (prorated) 2021 $156k $28k bonus $85k refresher Because Google stock is now about $3000/share. My original grant is now giving me around $124,500/yr This and my perf cycle gives me $156k+$28k+$21.5k+$124.5k Making my 2022 comp $330k Yes, I didn’t negotiate very well because I didn’t have any competing offers. But to me, as long as I’m making progress in increasing my TC. That’s what’s most important to me. I want to share this to ppl that if I was able to come from a System Analyst role making $67k in TC to $330k in a span of 6.5 years. You can too. I didn’t make this jump all at once. Each jump was a small stepping stone to the next opportunity. Is this the end of my career? definitely not! right now at Google, this is just another stepping stone to another opportunity. Just keep on chugging and keep interviewing. (btw I’m not the best interviewee. Each time I jump, I failed all but one of my interviews. I never had a competing offer so I didn’t have the leverage to negotiate) but I’m not jumping ship for the sake of changing companies. Each time I jump, it’s for a reason. Every jump, my TC always increases State Farm -> Facebook: didn’t become SWE but got the name brand Facebook -> Microsoft: became a SWE Microsoft -> Google: became L4 SWE Hope this inspires all you non-FAANG ppl to not give up. Keep interviewing!
you should take off the dates so you’re not identifiable
Fair point. I do want to keep the year just so ppl can see the yearly history
Even with the years it was 3 clicks to actually find you. You know on LinkedIn you can search for current and past company and the years just helped to eliminate David Ho…..
What titles did you move from job to job to?
State Farm Business analyst -> Facebook automation developer -> Microsoft SWE -> Google SWE
Interesting, thank you. How did you switch from BA to automation developer? Did you just keep growing in SWE?
similar-ish trajectory. I went from 40k to 300k in 4.5 years by moving from the non-profit space to product management with a pitstop in marketing.
Impressive! Even crazier than mine!
Please make a post about this. How did you get into product management? What was your background?
How did you jump from BA to SWE?
Facebook wasn’t a SWE role. It was named Automation Developer as an IC role. I used that as a “lie” to get a SWE role at msft. It wasn’t quite a lie because that’s what they named the role as but recruiters think it’s a swe role
I am probably in same boat start at 18/hr intern currently have a tc of 75k and landed my interview with FB can I dm you to dicuss more
Thanks for sharing. Good luck!
I increased my comp from 60k to 200k in 4 years. Right now interviewing hoping to follow Op’s path. Great inspiring post!
Keep going!
Pretty similar story here. ~7 years ago I was making 74k/year. TC for 2021 was ~500k and that is my projected for next year as well if G stock doesn't move at all so I'm hoping for a great 2022!
Congrats, we need more underdog stories like this rather than typical TC dick measuring contests on Blind
so true.
I 15x my compensation in 2 years. I was a PhD student making 30k a year then joined Uber 🤡
😂😂
450k at Uber for what??
What made you swtich to SWE rather than DS which is closer to Business Analyst
Honestly the business analyst role in SF was kinda a blanket role. I was doing more development stuff. Also my degree in college was in computer engineering not data science nor computer science. I was dealing more with hardware and some software. So transitioning to software was easier