google / apple / fb HW salary expectations
location bay area yoe: 4-6 + ms what is a decent or average offer to expect given the following above info, for these top tech companies? position: hardware engineering or silicon development the #’s ive seen here so far have varied quite a bit so i just want confirmation
Levels.fyi usually lists SWE salaries. Generally, for a given level, base and bonus are similar between HW and SW, but HW RSU ~ 0.6 x SW RSU
Like mentioned above, this is mostly only true because it's harder to get a good negotiating position in HW (i.e. Multiple offers from BigN companies). As an anecdote, I got 200k+ RSU offers from G/FB/Msft with 2.5 YoE by nailing the interviews and negotiating with multiple offers. HW is much harder to get large stock grants, but it can reach SWE level.
8 yoe masters electrical engineer offer from apple 260k rsus 185k base 45k sign on
SW or HW
Hw
Levels.fyi You can base it mostly off SWE level pay, as Apple/G/FB/Msft can reach parity for SWE pay in HW. Upward mobility may be slower in HW vs SWE though from what I've seen, so keep that in mind (i.e. IC3 to IC4 may take avg 2-3 years for SWE but 3-5 for HW due to less hiring/teams/business need). Another note here is that to get near SWE levels in HW, you need to have competing offers. My initial G/FB/MSFT offers were bad compared to SWE but I negotiated to get high band SWE level offers for my YoE. Ballpark I'd say like 155k+/260k+/60k+ is doable if you get multiple offers and negotiate.
Thanks for that. Would 4-6 years and ms qualify for ic3 or ic4 position? Also, I have an idea of the range based off of other offers but given the RSU and larger bonuses of these tech companies, I’ve only seen the base of the other companies is a bit higher than the average at these tech companies. In general, I just want to know what to “target” for to know that It’s not a lowball offer. As an example you mentioned 155k+ base but for an ic3 based off of levels.fyi it seems the average is around 130-140 for base, and the stock around low to mid 100s.. (for level 3)
I'd expect IC4 should be your target with ~5 YoE + MS, but this can definitely vary based on your interview performance, past projects/leadership experience, and the business/team needs of the company at the time. For IC4 150k+ base and 250k+ RSU's are very possible. To give you a reference, I got L3 from G, E4 from FB, and L61 from msft with only 2.5 YoE, so you have a good more experience than I did when I got those offers.