Ok, I posted about my Amazon offer a while back but got it removed (idk why) Now, I have a microsoft offer too. What do you think is better?! (All numbers in USD) PLEASE NOTICE THE LOCATION DIFFERENCE Education: MS YOE: 2 MSFT: Level: L62 (Applied Scientist 2) Location: Seattle, WA Base: 155k Stocks: 225k (over 4 years) Sign-on: 100k (50k each for years 1, 2) Perf. Bonus: 10% TC: ~252k (= 155 + 225/4 + 10% + 100/4) Team: Bing AMZN: Level: L5 (ML Engineer) Location: San Francisco, CA Base: 180k Stocks: 80 RSUs (5-15-40-40 split) Sign-on: 100k (year 1), 80k (year 2) TC: ~286k ( = total compensation divided by 4, with today's stock value) Team: Confidential (sorry) Which one do you think is good?! I think I can probably negotiate my Amazon offer a bit more but honestly am sorta happy with it lol. Edit: My amazon tc for the 4 years will be 292k-296k-278k-278k
That 5-15-40-40 split is nonsense
Actually the sign bonus compensates for that easily. I get more money in the first 2 years than 3 and 4.
You should get a better distro and the sign on
Wow! Congrats
Thanks :)
The team on Amazon matters dramatically. There are some freaking incredible teams and some I know of that have an unreal 75+% L5-L6 promo target, and there are some that I wouldn't wish upon my worst enemy
Ah, sorry for that. But it's a new-found team and still in experimental phase. Apparently Jeff B himself laid the groundwork for this project (at least that's what the HM told me) The team btw has super-smart people (like one of them is # 2 in codeforces and IOI winner lol)
Sounds like an exciting opp. Stack rank must be brutal in that team tho
I think ML Engineers do only engineering work at amazon, whereas AS do all the applied ML work. Depends on what you want to do, TCs are equivalent given COL
Yep, that's exactly my thought too. I am more into research side (since I just did grad school) and hence slightly in favor of AS. But I believe I get to learn things faster at AMZN. Hence the poll.
I personally find the ML engineer position (it's a new thing) nice. In the earlier stages of development you get to build models just like an AS, and later you also put them into prod, create impact. If you're this kind of person, you might like it. If you're solely into research (which often might not transfer onto prod) you're better off with something else. Also, the DevOps comment below is something that might have been true earlier, but with recent AWS services (the SM ecosystem), it has become quite manageable. Note: I am, in no way, trying to sell Amazon to you.
I have never heard of ML engineer position at Amazon . Must be something new ,
It says so on my offer letter 😃
It's just another business name. Technically it's SDE job position.
That's a great L62 offer
Yeah I negotiated a bit. Also, my interview went really good
Microsoft has better benefit, more 401k matching, stay healthy reimbursement, etc.. if you factor that in, it will be really close to amazon
It's already (almost) the same as Amazon's if you count just the state tax for California With benefits, MSFT's offer is definitely better than Amazon's.
ML engineer in Amazon has nothing to do with science. It's like Dev ops in ML team. It's just a another name for normal SDE. If you have a research background, either reject the amazon offer or ask for applied scientist position where pay is also lot better
True, the MLE at Amazon has to do a lot with ML infra + data + a tiny bit of actual applied ML
It's ZERO ML work. It's just handling dependencies and deploying them. Some of them don't even think of scaling problems. So, literally zero meat there for growth. Ask yourself a question, why do they need ML engineer when they will have more automated pipelines and decent coding applied scientists? They need MLE to just do the dirty work. If you have a chance, ask your hiring manager whether they promoted any MLE or how would the promotion look like from L5 to L6.
I am ex Amazonian, I didn’t hear of the MLE job title so I assume it is just SDE with ML focus. To be honest, the interesting ML problems are handled by Applied Scientist and the SDE just needs to productionize whatever model the AS gives, and do maintenance work. If you want to work on ML problems then you should ask the recruiter for AS position, not MLE. Bing (WebXT) team in Microsoft has a similar atmosphere as back when I was in Amazon. You can’t really slack and there is questionable wlb (well it’s team dependent). Also part of the pressure comes from the business side. On the flip side u get a lot of learning and fast growth. In other orgs in Microsoft I think it is more relaxed.
Thanks for your insight. That is really helpful! I am definitely into the AS kind of positions. Are you currently in the WebXT team?! If so, we may end up meeting when I join :)
Make a poll. Which team at Microsoft?
Done!
Lots of my friends left Bing recently. I heard it is a fast paced and high pressure environment. Some people will enjoy it