Now that almost every tier 1 company has some hardware efforts (google pixel/TPU, Amazon lab126, Apple, Facebook FRL, Microsoft Hololens etc, it will be great to compare who is paying for hardware engineers best. Please share your TC, YOE and level.
When I interviewed with Facebook, the interviewer was saying that the culture of the team is similar to Qualcomm. Is that true?
Amazon L7: 600k Facebook E7: 620k
FB - IC6 - $450k - 4 YoE Apple - ICT4 - $300k - 4 YoE Snap - L5 - $500k - 5 YoE
How is snap hw. Do they have get good talent? How is org, processes and culture
It varies quite a bit. Some teams are very senior and some lean more junior. But even the junior teams are full of humble and dedicated people. In terms of processes and culture, I'd say it's like a startup in the sense that the orgs are still generally small enough that they tend to prioritize being scrappy and getting things done however possible instead of developing or following established processes, but it is gradually moving in that direction. I worked at FB before and felt that the empire building was too strong and the PSC culture (which already sucks in general) doesn't really translate well to HW projects that tend to be long. There isn't any stress like that at Snap for performance.
How are you calculating TC here? Base + bonus + RSU/4 + sign on ?
I think sign on should either be not counted or at least divided by 4
Recent Microsoft HW offer, L62, Redmond. MS + 6YOE 224 TC per year (base + bonus + RSU/4) + 50k sign on.
Was this an initial offer or negotiated offer?
Negotiated, bumped sign on by 10k and RSU by 20k, no change in base. Did not have a strong competing offer.
Facebook E6, 10 yoe, 450k.
System or asic ?
Systems
Goog EE, L3 the whole time: New grad: 150k TC After 1 year: 172k TC
How much of that 22k is from refresh vs appreciation?
I calculated stock value at time of the grant, no appreciation. Over half the increase was a base salary raise.
How is google hardware teams. I know we end up hiring many from them and they end up hiring many from us.
Any findings to share?
FRL E6 TC 430k 14 YOE
Wondering what a hardware manager, which is supposedly equivalent to E6, make at these companies
Same TC, I was offered M1 and there is no change in compensation.
levels.fyi
Levels.FYI data is really thin for hardware salaries. I do realize that any data I see here will be also similarly not very exhaustive.