Passed Amazon on-site. How to negotiate?
I just heard from my recruiter that I passed the onsite. The next step is to meet with couple of teams and choose one that I like most. I was told that I aced the interviews, but they also mentioned the level is L5 and it was decided based on the interview. The recruiter asked for my comp expectations, and mentioned the base is capped at 160K, though I heard it's higher for NY. Is there any way to ask them to re-consider/re-interview me for L6? How to negotiate comp? Do I just give a higher number, or ask them to come up with an initial offer? Also, what's a good comp for top of the band L5 (considering I'm from non-faang, not sure how much that matters)? 10 yoe, 200K, NY.
Use Amazon offer against other company and pick the other company
Good suggestion. I thought about this, and got couple other phone interviews scheduled, so it'll take a couple of weeks at least.
Is there a deadline where you have to respond to amazon recruiter?
NYC Cap is 185K on base
Don't sell your soul for less than 260k
300k min
Thanks. But what's realistic for L5 in NY?
What was the role/title you interviewed for?
L6. I told recruiter early on that I'm not interested in L5 given my experience.
Not the level but the role. SDE, TAM, SA??
Never join as l5 when you have more than 6years of experience. Maybe 8 when you are from non major tech. Reasons: your peer l5 will be 2-5 yoe most likely. They will most likely out perform you for awhile since they have been at amazon longer. The promotion queue for l6 is super long. It will take external to go from l5 to l6 minimum 3 years. Even then you are bottom of l6 when you get promoted. Interview again next time and join as l6. Your comp will be much better than internal promoted l6.
Thank you! Can I approach other recruiters/interview for other teams as L6 while having this L5 offer in hand? I know it's doesn't hurt to try, but I want to know if it can be done? Like will the other recruiter most likely see my profile and not submit me for L6?
No
I agree with wootata.. dont join as L5 your peers will be having 4-6 years of experience or even lesser
Thanks, I agree with you, and I don't want to either. I asked to be submitted for L6 and told I was matched for L5 after doing well in the interviews. Recruiter mentioned I was the top choice of 4 candidates they liked, but still got low balled. May be they say that to everyone, just to make them happy?
You can get up to 260-280k as a strong L5 in NYC, I think (the base cap there is 185k). Regarding levels: these are indeed based on interview results and almost always non-negotiable. Only 10% of the SDEs in the entire company are L6, and there are a ton of L5s at Amazon with more (often much more) than 5 YoE. It's actually a career/terminal level in many orgs. Also, don't forget that Amazon has a notoriously aggressive performance management culture. If you go in over-leveled, there's a strong risk you'll have terrible WLB or worse. I worked at Amazon for 5 years (now 7 YoE total) and left as an L6. A lot of my own effectiveness depended upon knowing the culture and system, and having tribal knowledge and influence within my org. You will have none of that as an outside hire. That said, it is true that the L5 -> L6 promo is typically slow and difficult and (for many) never actually happens, and that you will go to the bottom of the band when you are promoted.
Thanks for the detailed response đ Everything you said makes sense, except I'm not sure if I'll have any better WLB coming in as an outsider L5. I'm at the point in my career and life, where if I'm jumping ship I want to make it count, and preferably stay there for a few years and grow. Hence the dilemma about TC and Level. Are you in NY?
Nah, I was (and still am) in Seattle. L5 is pretty chill if you're actually a strong developer: basically, if you can cut through a bit of ambiguity to work independently and deliver working code without somebody else holding your hand, you'll pretty reliably meet or exceed expectations, and probably won't have issues with WLB unless your team is awful (ops fires and tier 1/high availability services, or exec escalations). You won't be expected to lead or launch large projects, or to have any real visibility outside of your own team. That said, given the scarcity of L6s in general, and their propensity to gather in places where they have can have the sort of cross-org/cross-functional impact often expected of them, a lot of teams are actually lead/run by L5s (especially if they're tenured). So, depending upon your background--e.g. if you haven't worked on hyperscale systems or greenfield projects before--you can still have significant growth opportunities on the right team, for sure. However, you can also end up doing a lot of scut work or dealing with tedious, boring, and often stressful ops meltdowns. Amazon is just like that. The biggest problem is that the bottom of the L5 band is really low for somebody with years of experience in a premium tech market (you're likely to take a huge TC hit in year 5), which is exactly where you'll go without a promotion or continuous top tier perf ratings (both of which are often somewhat political). And, like I said, getting the L6 promo is often difficult. I just got lucky, frankly (and then had to deal with underwhelming comp, so I left anyhow).
Congrats man, was this for the AWS hiring event last Friday?
Yes