How much is the monthly salary of Google employees at all levels? How to get into Google? What are you doing there?

Google programmers earn $250,000 per year, surpassing the President of the United States

Recently, I had a great conversation with a former employee of mine. We talked a lot and went through everything that had happened since we last met a few years ago. One of the things he mentioned was that he was now a programmer at Google.

He suddenly said: "The information you saw in the forum about Google's salary is wrong. I can get almost 250,000 yuan a year." This is a person like him who has less than 30 years old, making money from programming, not a manager or similar position.

Let me explain the matter in more detail: This guy graduated from a good university majoring in computer science, but he definitely did not come from MIT or other universities of the same level. He is a computer science major. A good programmer, but in his own words: "At Google, I feel stupid most of the time." He has been developing very interesting things with very little risk pressure, so that he can put in 1/4 every year. Take home a million dollar salary. This is equivalent to four times the local police income. The President of the United States does more than him, but only gets $150,000 a year!

Assuming that he is telling the truth and is not exaggerating - I have no doubt about this guy, he is an extremely honest person - excluding various taxes and living expenses in California, There is still a lot of money left.

The downside to charging so much cash or Google stock for your work is that it’s difficult to remove the golden handcuffs. It may seem difficult to give up that kind of revenue and spend several years building a startup that is fraught with risks and uncertain prospects for profitability.

On the other hand, if you have a clear goal and work at Google for 4 years on a tight budget, you may be able to save enough start-up capital to start a company. But whether you can earn a salary equivalent to that of a chief XX officer in such a startup company is still a question (unless there is a good exit mechanism). For most people, I think their answer is no. You have to bear huge responsibilities and pressure, and in the first 4 or 5 years - assuming you finally succeed - your reward may only be a fraction of the money you make in a company like Google.

But on second thought, I shouldn’t be surprised. After all, if Google recruits these talented and driven people and wants to retain them, it needs to find a way to discourage them from going it alone. The simplest way to achieve this goal is to allocate part of its abundant funds to those who have strong technical capabilities and are worthy of long-term training.

The average annual salary of Google programmers is about US$130,000. This guy is obviously much higher than this level, and he has additional bonuses or stocks. After all, for someone under 30 years old, earning a quarter of a million dollars a year is impressive. Pretty good. We can reasonably deduce that those with more experience than him will earn more than this.

The effect of this - from a startup perspective - is that if your company is located in Silicon Valley, companies like Google become strong competitors for attracting talent. In an ecosystem like Silicon Valley, you feel you have a certain advantage at first, but you also find that you spend more money on programmers here than in a place like Google where deep-pocketed companies are relatively rare. a lot of.

If you don’t want your money to be burned out quickly, it’s a good idea to headquarter in Silicon Valley and develop development elsewhere. Food for thought.

Before this conversation, I thought the data about Google salaries described in this article was credible, but now I don’t think so.

Second question

Kai-fu Lee: How do graduates from ordinary schools enter Google

(1) It is indeed not easy to enter a famous company from a non-first-class school. Since the current employment situation shows a shortage of jobs, many of the best foreign companies and state-owned enterprises have set the threshold relatively high. Indeed, students who are not from prestigious schools will have a more difficult time, and some companies even do not consider students from non-prestigious schools. However, this means there is no hope. When I was at Microsoft, I hired an engineer who hadn't finished college. I also hired a junior college engineer at Google. These few breakthroughs have all taken advantage of their college years and brought out their own highlights (one started his own business but did not succeed but had valuable experience, and the other wrote hundreds of thousands of lines of code in a certain field). When applying, their cover letter lets these highlights shine and captures the attention of company HR.

(2) Entering a famous company may not be possible in one step, and not everyone can develop such bright spots. However, if you are really eager to achieve this goal, you should seek advice on how to maximize your opportunities. You do not have to enter your dream company immediately after graduation. Give yourself a few more years to reach your goal in two steps.

For example, a few years ago, an undergraduate who graduated from an ordinary school wanted to join Google. After having an in-depth discussion with him, I found that he did have potential, but apart from the fact that the school was not well-known, his foundation was not deep enough. So, I suggested that he go to Canada. Studying for a master's degree at the University of Waterloo. This school is not difficult to get into, and the tuition is not too expensive, but graduates have a good chance of entering Google. He completed his master's degree in two years and joined Google this summer as he wished. Another person wanted to enter a certain department of Microsoft, but that department usually did not accept current graduates. After his consultation, he found that that department often hired employees from its vendor company, so he worked hard to enter Microsoft from that vendor company. group, and finally entered Microsoft a few years later. As a final example, a graduate from an ordinary university wanted to join a well-known Internet company. He found that the company hired many temporary workers for testing. So, he first learned basic manual testing, and after graduation, he joined the company as a temporary worker, starting from the lowest level of manual testing. A year later, his efforts and abilities were finally discovered, and he was given the opportunity to become a full-time employee. If you really desire a goal, then you need to seek consultation, work hard, and be patient to get the chance.

(3) When you first enter college, everyone still has a chance. I object to positioning myself as "never getting into a good company." Moreover, whether you want to enter a famous company or a small and medium-sized enterprise, your efforts are the same: study your major well, discover your own interests, cultivate "highlights" that can stand out, practice self-study ability, improve your emotional intelligence, and learn from the team through club activities and other activities. Cooperation (my "Fourth Letter to Chinese Students" puts forward seven key points). When you first enter college, you should never give up too early. You may not like your school, but you cannot dislike yourself. If you lament, hesitate, or even become decadent, you will have nothing after wasting your four years. If you are dissatisfied with your future when you enter school and then don't make progress, you will only be more dissatisfied four years later. If you like yourself and care about your future, you have to tell yourself: "I want to spend the most fulfilling four years from this imperfect place. I will learn what the teacher can't teach well; what I can't learn from textbooks , I went to study online. "Maybe after four years of doing this, you still can't get into the company you yearn for, but at least then you know that you didn't waste your four years, you did the best you could, and you will. Get into the best company you can. Lincoln once said: "Always bear in mind that your own resolution to success is more important than any other one thing. (Always bear in mind that your own resolution to success is more important than any other one thing.)"

(4) If you are about to graduate, you should really evaluate your opportunities pragmatically. If it is impossible to enter a famous company, don't take a chance. You should be down-to-earth and enter the best job you can find, do the job well, and learn more and grow more. No matter whether I stay in this company or change jobs in the future, I will slowly look for better opportunities in the future.

(5) Indeed, there is nothing wrong with small and medium-sized enterprises. They can even help you try more jobs and develop entrepreneurial abilities. In addition, do not blindly worship foreign companies. Chinese companies are on the rise, and world-class companies such as Microsoft, Google, GE, and Procter & Gamble will definitely appear in the next ten years. Therefore, don't regard foreign companies as the only way out. Choose a company with a good corporate culture and a company where you can learn and grow. Such a company may one day become a future world brand.