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Anatomies of Amazon and Google Data Scientist Offers

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Data Scientist is one of the fastest growing careers in the world today. Many people with strong math, statistics and engineering backgrounds have pivoted their careers to Data Science to get into the doors of top firms such as Google, Amazon, Facebook, etc. for better career prospect and higher pay. Today I’m sharing with you one Amazon Data Scientist offer and one Google Data Scientist offer. (Disclaimer: I have changed the data slightly to protect confidentiality but both the numbers and structure of the compensation reflect the current reality of Amazon and Google offers.)

Let’s start with a recent Amazon Data Scientist Offer

  • Job title: Data Scientist
  • Level: 5
  • # of years of work experience: 5
  • Base Salary: $150,000
  • Year 1 sign-on bonus: $45,000
  • Year 2 sign-on bonus: $40,000
  • Restricted Stock Units:  $120,000 worth of RSUs 
  • RSU vesting schedule: 5%/15%/40%/40%

Total Compensation:

  • Year 1: $201,000
  • Year 2: $208,000
  • Year 3: $198,000
  • Year 4: $198,000
  • Total: $805,000

Now, let’s take a look at a recent Google Data Scientist offer:

  • Job title: Data Scientist, Engineering
  • Level: 4
  • # of years of work experience: 5
  • Base Salary: $160,000
  • Year 1 sign-on bonus: $40,000
  • Yearly performance based bonus: 15%
  • Restricted Stock Units:  $400,000  worth of RSUs
  • RSU vesting schedule: 25%/25%/25%/25%

Total Compensation:

  • Year 1: $324,000
  • Year 2: $284,000
  • Year 3: $284,000
  • Year 4: $284,000
  • Total: $1,176,000

Observations:

  • Data Scientists are compensated well. Both examples are from relatively junior Data Scientists with about 5 years of professional experience. 
  • Are Data Scientists paid more or less than SDEs or TPMs at the same level? In my last newsletter, I shared an Amazon level 5 TPM offer with total compensation of $790,000 over 4 years. In this example, the Amazon level 5 Data Scientist total compensation over 4 years is $805,000. I’d say they are comparable. 
  • In this example, Google pays better than Amazon due to three reasons: 1) Google offered more Restricted Stock Units (RSUs) with a more generous vesting schedule 2) Google offers 15% performance based bonus each year while Amazon doesn’t have performance based bonus. Amazon does offer sign-on bonus for the first two years. 3) Google offers higher base salary. However, these two candidates have very different professional and educational backgrounds. So, this is not exactly an apple-to-apple comparison. So, I wouldn’t draw a conclusion that Google’s Data Scientist offer is higher than Amazon’s Data Scientist offer in general. It really depends on the specific candidate and job description. 
  • If you have strong quantitative and analytical skills and are looking into Data Science careers, I definitely recommend you to explore further. It’s a lucrative career option and it will become even more important as big data is playing an increasingly bigger role in the world. With that said, Data Scientists tend to face a career inflection point about 7-15 years into their career — should they stay in Data Science or move to something else? You can look into options such as Product Management, TPM, or Marketing (due to your superb data analytic skills).  The good news is that a Data Scientist job gives you a strong foundation and flexibility to move into other areas. It could serve as a great career stepping stone. 

Need help to nail your upcoming interview with Amazon, Facebook, Salesforce, Google, Microsoft or other tech firms? Sign up for my 1-on-1 personalized interview coaching programs. Check out my coaching page with details, a list of recent job offers, and client testimonials.

Additionally, I also offer customized coaching for career transition, getting unstuck, and navigating corporate politics.

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