Has anyone heard of or been through Amperity’s interview process for a software engineering role? It’s a series D unicorn based in Seattle, and seems great. Really cool products, amazing year-over-year growth, smart/talented team, etc. Im just wondering about their general reputation and how a unicorn like Amperity stacks up against Amazon on a resume? Will it open the same amount of doors for me (coming from a WITCH)? If it’s worth anything, I felt that the Amperity interview loop was harder than that of Amazon’s. But looks like total compensation is lower, although I didn’t factor in Amperity’s equity, because quite frankly, I’m not really sure how to. Amperity pay per hour might be more though because from I’ve heard, WLB is much better than Amazon WLB. My eventual goal is to become a quant dev at an HFT (have a math degree from a T25 and some competition math experience) so I was wondering which company would be better aligned for my goal? Of course I’ll probably aim for Google/Meta or a well-known “start-up” like Snapchat next, as going straight to an HFT role with my limited experience will probably be really tough. Thanks for reading!!! Amperity TC: 135k + 10k options (10,000 contracts that grant me the right to buy the stock at ipo at a certain strike price…hard to value this, could be big or could be worthless) Amazon TC: 172k (but RSUs are backloaded, only 5% granted in year 1 and I don’t plan on staying longer than a year so not really 172k)
Amazon will pay you cash up front instead of stocks. Ur TC will be pretty much the same for the first 4 years unless you get a promotion. I would take Amazon over a pre-IPO company any day. You sound like you are too good for Amazon. With that attitude, if you join amazon it will definitely humble you. Good luck!
Sorry, I’m sort of new to all this, so it was confusing calculating the 1st year TC accurately. And I apologize if I came off as being “too good” for amazon; I’m super excited to have gotten both offers. It’s just that I’ve heard a lot of horror stories about amazon, and I’m not super TC obsessed at this moment, so I’m leaning towards taking Amperity at slightly lower pay and less stress, but worried that it would look much worse on a resume
Amazon is a considerably larger company so be sure to factor that in when you hear more about Amazon.
Based on the phrasing of your Amazon TC, it doesn’t seem like you’re calculating it right.
172k is the number I’ve heard for Seattle TC for new grad, but the RSU calculation is weird since I only get 5% my 1st year? Yet some people divide the total RSU amount by 4 to calculate 1st year TC
Amazon gives you large monthly bonuses for the first two years so initial offer will have the same TC across the first four years. Also, it goes above $172k now.
Haven’t heard of Amperity. It’s a smaller company so naturally it will be less recognizable, but that could easily change over time. To me, it seems like if you want the higher TC with risk of worse WLB, go with Amazon. If you want want seems like a healthy work environment, go with Amperity. I would also ask HR at Amperity more questions so you can calculate current value of those options (current share price = most recent valuation/total shares). Many say to consider pre-IPO shares as $0, but sometimes it can help to at least have a reference.
Easily change? Lol it’s very unlikely just given the percentages.
What do you mean by percentages? I didn’t mean to imply that Amperity would need to be the same size as Amazon to have a better recognition, but it will probably need to grow some. Take Airbnb for example- much smaller than Amazon but they’re known to hire better talent than Amazon. Edit: Nevermind, I understand after rereading. Definitely wouldn’t be easy to have a company look better on a resume than Amazon, but it is a possibility.
Fwiw Amazon can go much higher for L4. I got a 212k TC offer a couple weeks ago.
+1 on this. 172k for L4 does seem low (assuming this is for Seattle as well)
Omg finally an Amperity question on Blind. This is some growth 👀 I actually recently joined Amperity! I'd recommend anyone work here if they get the chance. Company culture is amazing. WLB is really good. Everyone is so smart and passionate. And the product has incredible potential. A lot of people havent heard about Amperity before because it's martech and that generally has a smaller following than other areas like fintech. But from a technical standpoint, it's a really interesting machine learning problem. If you want growth and good team culture, come to Amperity. If you want TC and brand name, go to Amazon. Number 25 on this list of the world's top 50 data startups: https://future.a16z.com/data50/
Thanks, this was the answer I was exactly looking for! Idc about brand name and the TC is six figures so it’s not like I’ll be starving lol. But yeah I completely agree with everything you said, it seems like a super cool place to work at and that’s why I’m leaning towards Amperity. Congrats on the offer btw!
Thank you! See you on the flip side :)
Layoffs
Yesterday
1089
We have 8 months left. They’re going to crash the economy once Trump is back.
Tech Industry
Yesterday
1532
Meta E6 offer.
Tech Industry
8h
472
How many years into your career should you be less of a code monkey?
Tech Industry
4h
835
How bad is it in meta?
Tech Industry
Yesterday
3427
Job market is brutal for SWEs 🥲
Your Amazon TC is 172k first and second year too because of the sign on bonus
I see, thanks for clarifying!