I recently interviewed at Amazon for SDE L5 but ended up getting an L4 offer for ~190k TC in NYC. My current TC is theoretically ~200k at a startup if bonus gets paid out, which I see as unlikely due to company performance, so realistically 150k plus a ton of useless equity. 2.5 yoe with no prior FANG experience but other cool tech company exp. Due to how Amazon comp is structured, this is like an extra $1200/month post tax. I still have interviews at FB, Google, LinkedIn— however those are all for production engineer/SRE. I have interviews at Lyft and Bloomberg for SWE. I’ll need to give an answer for Amazon before being able to finish any of the others I think due to my poor timing. Anyone have thoughts? Stay at startup and see if I can do better? Take Amazon and try again a year down the road? Take Amazon and try to get promo for L5?
Take it and if you ended up getting other offer bounce specially google imo
The non-compete they force you to sign may make that an issue. If you sign with AWS then realise moves to Google Cloud or Microsoft Azure may incur actual risk. Though legally they can prevent you going anywhere.
@New won't be applicable if you are employed in CA.
Take again in 6 months by then you should be halfway thru google process LMAO
Wait for the other interviews. Don't fall for their artificial deadlines that is just part of the official pressure tactics. Just be firm that you are interviewing elsewhere. Amazon is truly the worst of all those options.
So with 2+ years of experience, Amazon would consider external candidates to be L5?
I’m not sure what the floor is for L5 yoe, but they considered me for it which, from browsing blind, seems to have happened to others as well
There was a post on blind talking about how bands and refreshers/bonuses work at Amazon. My understanding is joining as L4 and getting promoted to L5 puts you at the bottom of the band, but external L5 will be mid band. So the offer you negotiate will be the TC you get for the next 4 years, after which there will probably be a cliff.
TC is pretty good for L4. If you're willing to be patient and try again after 6 months you can make much more at L5.