Corp Fin at Big Tech Compensation
I feel dumb for not having explored this earlier but I heard that Corp fin at big tech can pay was higher than I thought primarily due to RSUs. The job postings will have the salary range and sometimes even bonus % even though it’s small. However, they fail to mention that you’ll get paid a lot in RSUs. I’ve heard from a friend of a friend that someone with like 3-5 years could be easily making $250K+ if you include annual RSUs working 40 hours or less. He said 5-7ish could get to $300-$350K. Is that true? If so, why aren’t people on Wall Street or high finance switching to that because it seems like a lot better pay per hour combo?
Not sure, what kind of big tech firm but that kind of stock comp only starts after the Director level which is a slog to get to. Corporate wages at the Manager level (which most from IB juniors come in at) are not liveable wages
This is mostly specific to FAANG/Mega cap tech. I know that there’s usually a big jump in compensation at the director level but this person made it seem like the stock was still a decent portion of total comp at managerish levels. FWIW, it doesn’t seem like it takes much stock to get there.
Levels.fyi seems to be the go-to source for tech and it shows that the average total comp in the US for Google L5 (Senior Financial Analyst) is $259K with stock contributing $56K per year. The L6 shows $360K total compensation with $106K stock per year. I bet that this is a big promotion that likely takes a few years in L5, which would align with the years of experience ranges provided
Lol. Sorry but Finance managers with ~5 YOE are not making 250k+ in a megacorp
Many people are now aware that RSUs at large tech companies can greatly increase compensation, making total pay more competitive and offering a better work-life balance than high finance.
RSU's at L4/L5 at the FAANG I was at in a corp fin/strat capacity are relatively negligible. $130k base, $60k sign spread over Y1 and Y2 and paid out in your base (making Y1 base $160k, Y2 base $160k+raise), 10% bonus target, and $100k RSU's on a 4-year schedule (5, 15, 40, 40). This gets you to Y1 TCC of ~$178k. You're awarded more RSU's as you progress and as you can imagine they begin to compound pretty meaningfully. You've just gotta remember you actually have to sell the stock if you want to include it in cash comp, and IMO, it's kinda silly to sell short-term.
Appreciate the response! Could you talk a little bit about background - prior experience and total YoE? I want to make sure we are roughly talking about the same level since L5 at Google is probably more akin to like an L6 at Amazon I would imagine. If that was comp for a L4 into L5 (using Amazon titles), then that would be mostly in-line with my expectations. If it’s L4/L5 at Google, that’s coming in a little lighter than expectations and the data I’ve seen.
Also interesting perspective about vesting schedule from the RSUs. I figured it would be back-end weighted but not as significant as that. I guess the signing bonus being split across years helps offset this.
I don’t think we should be solving for cash comp. Sure cash comp would be nice, but I don’t think it makes a big difference. If you received the RSUs as cash comp, you should be buying stocks anyways. Now you don’t have the flexibility that you do with cash comp but we are talking about working at FAANGs and the like, which have significant weighting in S&P funds anyways. My take is total comp is more important than higher cash comp, but this is just my opinion.
That package was after 1 year of non-IB FO finance at a BB followed by 3 years of progressive corp fin/strat fin experience. Because ik everyone benefits from complete information, it was AWS.
Just be aware that finance at big tech is one of the areas that they are cutting aggressively. Google had a pretty massive haircut recently and hiring more in India. Similarly I believe Meta has moved most if not all to Texas. Packages on a whole have dropped since the layoffs happened. Still, it's the best option to maximize $/hr especially with RSU appreciation
Most answers in the thread are stupid. You are correct. Go look at levels.fyi in detail, only biggest companies
Corporate Finance can give you a pretty nice life if you stay the course and find a good landing spot. As a mid-30s professional you can make Director / Sr. Director and be pulling in $400k - $500k in total comp while working normalish hours.
Source: me
Thanks for the insight. Any particular industry or role that you recommend for this given that Corp includes FP&A, Corp Dev, IR, Treasury, etc…is any particular segment more prone to faster promotions or better comp trajectory? From what I’ve seen many times you are dependent on the people above you needing to either leave or be promoted upwards. It’s going to sound quite hard, but it does spook me that there are people in corp who have been working at around a Manager level for many years into their 30s and older. Want to avoid that fate…
I’d guide that the best landing spots are strategic finance roles that focus on the revenue side, because these roles are cross functional in nature and directly impact business decisions. This helps to increase both exposure and impact.
Supporting pricing, marketing, sales, R&D roadmaps, lending/underwriting, retention, cross-sell or loyalty programs are the right idea. Even better if you do it at a high growth company, because there tends to be a higher volume of decision that need to me made. Pure FP&A / corporate planning are generally slower to promote and are a bit boring imo. I’d put treasury in this camp too.
Corp dev & IR are interesting because the more directly leverage the banking toolkit, but it can be easier to get pigeon holed in these roles
Thank you so much for this. So it seems the best would be to target smaller companies in biz ops or strategic finance roles. Many times it seems they lump strategic finance with Corp dev or FP&A, and IR together. So to confirm you would not recommend even a path of Corp Dev or IR within a F500? Those roles obviously seem more available than biz ops at a startup from IB
Like always, "it depends"
My golden rule for corp fin is "the closer you are to influencing business decisions that drive revenue or reduce COGS, the faster you are likely to grow"
I guess that if you care more about slightly more “interesting” work then a startup might work. The role itself is going to matter more than the company on average and the startup roles tend to be more broad if you like that kind of thing. But I can pretty much guarantee they won’t pay like big tech will. Just something for the readers to consider.
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