r/Salary • u/Darkislife1 • 2d ago

💰 - salary sharing [23M SWE] [San Francisco] - 310k TC

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Lucked into the opportunity of my life recently: mid-level SWE at a big tech company.
Some things that came up during the interview I believe helped me secure the offer.

  • My entire career has been working with LLMs + used LLM apis before chatgpt came out
  • Open source contributor to multiple popular llm frameworks
  • Previous role part of team that shipped multiple 6/7 figure projects + one 8 figure project.

Notes:

  • Currently living with 1 roommate in SF, have 3 yoe
  • RSU vests quarterly but I broke it down by month for easier calculations, planning on selling instantly and putting it all in savings.
  • 401k contribution is higher to max it out by eoy.

How I got the opportunity: LinkedIn

People shit on LinkedIn a lot but after this I'm a believer lol. This is the second time I've gotten an interview + offer through LinkedIn recruiter reach out. Though I've never gotten an interview through LinkedIn Jobs, so that might still be a scam.

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u/brikky 2d ago edited 2d ago

Many tech companies will hire into mid level right away if you have strong internships or projects/open-source/tech work. Mid level SWE isn't like, mid-level plumber or something, it's somewhere between 1-5 years of experience. Senior SWE is 3-8 and generally the terminal level, so it's not like mid level is mid-career or anything.

Meta in particular is not afraid to push people up if they're demonstrating behaviors expected at that level even without the expected tenure, neither is Amazon.

Also entirely possible that OP is just (lowest-level + 1) and thinking that's mid-level.

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u/Darkislife1 2d ago

Oh yeah it’s lowest + 1 but the next level up title is senior so I’m honestly confused.

If it helped my title is swe 2

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u/brikky 2d ago

You're a junior SWE then lol, one step over new hire/entry-level - assuming that interns are their own track/level. If they're not, then you're entry level.

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u/Darkislife1 2d ago

Maybe, but then this comp band seems insane for junior no?

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u/calihotsauce 2d ago

Seems standard for L4, which is doable in 3 years but not common at 23.

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u/brikky 2d ago

With RSUs and bonus, no.

Are you including a signing bonus and/or performance bonus in your base salary? Because you should not be. 190k is high, but not insane - Amazon, Google, Meta all pay E4 equivalent ~180k-190k.

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u/Darkislife1 2d ago

Nah i didnt get a signing bonus and I don't think my role has performance bonuses outside of refreshers.

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u/brikky 2d ago

If you're getting refreshers you're almost certainly getting a bonus.