I have a principal level offer from epic games and I’m seriously considering it (didn’t think I would) because the work is super interesting and people tell me the WLB is great. How is the engineering culture there? And can someone explain how the bonuses work? The guaranteed bonus for the first 2 years seems extremely high (1.5x annual salary); I’m not sure what I could expect after that. If it means a major TC drop after 2 years I would reconsider a lot. TC: 500k (gonna go even lower after the stock drop) - offer from epic is a decent chunk higher #tech #epicgames
I’ve interviewed for a suuuper backend team (engine work). Also they do company shutdowns for 2 weeks twice a year which sounds great.
WLB at Epic was somewhat rough in early days (Gears of War), but nowadays it's pretty good even on the Fornite team and awesome elsewhere.
Edited!
You will get a massive drop bonus wise after two years. Most people's bonuses are 10-20% of annual salary quarterly based off of your twice a year performance reviews. So 40-80% of salary annually. You're probably looking at some nice cash though the first two years. And if what were working on works out, bonuses will shoot up again. WLB is fantastic.
Yeah I was told most people in the US take 2-3 weeks pto in addition to the shutdowns. The shutdowns are appealing though
What role are you in, @epic9? I’m curious to hear if bonuses vary a lot by role/level. The guaranteed bonus in my offer letter seems crazy high and I wonder if it just tanks after 2 years
Honestly I’m having a hard time believing the bonus number but it’s spelled out as guaranteed for the first 2 years in the offer letter. I am worried it would drop massively right after to something like you said
In my experience you’ll receive whatever is in writing, it’s what’s told to you verbally that holds no weight. Which is true anywhere but I personally feel like Epic leadership / HR says whatever they think will keep people quiet, then don’t hold themselves to it and will backtrack in written communication.
It’s team and org dependent. I’ve worked here since January and so far the work has been rewarding and interesting , the WLB has been great (I work 40hrs or less), and the perks are nice (free swag, paid work trips, free lunches, etc). The engineering culture from my perspective (I’m in Online org) is that you get a lot of creative freedom and agency to do what you want to solve a problem. There’s a lot of cross collaboration between teams and so I’ve learned a lot from others on adjacent teams. Unit/Integration testing is encouraged and CI/CD is built into our projects. We also have RFCs for major new projects that are shared between teams that anyone can comment on and view. Pull requests are required for most if not all projects and are gated by approvals, amping other criteria dependent on project. Again, every org is different, it’s possible FN or some other org doesn’t work this way. Bonuses are done quarterly and it’s pretty much black box, unlike FAANG where it’s clearly laid out based on level it just sort of shows up, however, we have semi annual reviews that do play a part in them. We assume bonus amounts are tied to company profit and individual performance. My quarterly bonuses this year have been pretty consistent except for this last one which was 50% more. I like you have a 2 year bonus structure, with my first year being a guarantee, which I surpassed by 25%, 100k immediate sign on, 65k after first year, and 50k after second year. I had the same questions about the 2 year drop off as I have a significant portion of TC tied to my sign on bonus and I’m hoping that raises and being a high performer sustains my TC (425 if you include 401k matching as L4, or high senior, one level below principal). I’m working on getting principal which hopefully pumps up my TC. I came from Microsoft where everything is pretty clearly laid out for TC based on level and the performance multiplier, coming to Epic is a big difference with comp transparency. Managers don’t know how much you make, so what you get is based off a rating system and feedback and I’m assuming is sent up to finance somewhere. Understanding WHY you got a certain amount can get tricky to get an answer for. 401k has a three year profit sharing vest. So, if my TC drops after the second year I may consider waiting out till the third and looking elsewhere. However, the medical insurance is amazing and my wife would hate me if I left cause it’s the Cadillac of insurance ( no copays whatsoever, no premiums, and it covers almost everything out there with 125 visits per category per person which is nuts). With the amount of visits we’ve taken this year for chiropractor, PT, etc I’ve probably gotten 10s of thousands of dollars of care for free, my wife is at the doctors office probably 6 times a week.
This is really helpful, thanks! Yeah the recruiter said I’m guaranteed 150% of my salary as bonus in the first 2 years; it seems really really hard to believe that that will continue after 2 years
Woah, that’s way better than what I got, but then again, I’m not principal. So far, bonuses have been less than what I had expected, but who knows what will happen in the future. I say in this climate it’s probably best to take high cash offers and leverage them for buying stocks at mega discounts. I got in the right on time, I went from a stock dependent TC to all cash and now my TC has stayed while all others have plummeted due to the market.
We don't make many external principal offers so careful not to doxx yourself :)
Why leave Meta? Because TC?
That and burnout
I’m interested in a position at epic games. Can anyone help me with a referral.
Epic