User deleted post
money is money and this gig will fill the unemployment gap helping u land your next gig
Take it, actually a bunch of my current team at Amazon were originally hired as contractors and then were converted to FT. It’s a decent way to get your foot in the door IMO.
When they were converted to FT, how did the leveling go? Was Amazon good about leveling them appropriately?
I wasn’t around when they were converted unfortunately, my understanding is that they were converted at the appropriate level though. One caveat is that they were on the product side rather than developer, so maybe it’s a little different for us (probably not). I’d suggest looking for people on LinkedIn who were converted to FT as well as contractors that weren’t and ask about their experience. Best of luck man
Thanks!
You will be leveled E3 (Junior) if you convert. Which is not super common to be honest. You still have to do the entire interview loop as if you were an external hire.
got it
Depends. It always depends. Don’t go in with that hope because many recruiting agencies will tell you that just to give you false hope
Take what you can in this market. You can always leave later.
Take the offer. As a contract position you’re already in the disposable staff bucket. They likely already have 5x other candidates.
If it was FT you can negotiate. Take the job, kick ass and negotiate if it turns into a FT role. Keep looking for better opportunities in the mean time. You don’t have a whole lot of leverage.
Take it.
If you do not have any competing offers, then you cannot negotiate.
This is just terrible advice. You can always negotiate, you don’t need a counter. You just have to use your bargaining chip that you will say no without an improvement.
Really where you accept depends on how long you can sustain unemployment. For a contract position, $89 an hour is a lowball. Typical rates are 2-3x your salary and this is only ~$180k a year.
Update: I tried to negotiate a 10% increase and got refused but instead they offered to make role fully remote.
If he doesn’t negotiate, he doesn’t potentially fuck up the offer. If he does, there’s always that small chance.
It really is not.
The best alternative to not taking this offer is literally unemployment. Sure, they can try to counter, but they don't have another offer.
Negotiation has a cost. The risk is a chance that the offer will be rescinded, or that you sour the relationship with the hiring manager/potential manager. Sure, you can make a calculated risk. Maybe after research you find that Meta doesn't rescind offers based on negotiation very often (not a fact, please check), but their negotiating position here is quite weak.
Cannot negotiate as in they’ll rescind the offer or they’ll just say no?
cannot negotiate as in you're fucked if they rescind
doesn't mean they will, but is that risk you're willing to accept
In what world can you not negotiate without a counter? You have market data and can say you won’t accept at their current rate.
Yeah, they can pull an offer. But they’ve already spent 5 figures interviewing you so they’re not stupid!
they lose $30k USD
you go back to unemployment
guess which side can absorb that loss better?
again I'm not saying they WILL rescind, I'm saying IF they do, you're fucked
irrelevant though if you have competing offers, which OP have none
You can, there’s one of you and a lot of other candidates. If they did this with everyone they would hemorrhage money and no one would trust them.
Just say it’s less than your other bidded rates, there’s always a way. You don’t have to roll over and accept the first number for fear of them pulling it!
why would "no one would trust them"?
imagine I'm candidate #182732, I don't care HOW or WHY or the background context surrounded the job offer that's given to me, as in I don't care if the company has pulled/rescinded this offer from another candidate before me and that's why they're giving me the offer now, why would I not trust them?
Just say it’s less than your other bidded rates
so, that's bluffing/lying, which is a totally different discussion
I just googled this quickly and I think you’re talking out your ass (respectfully). Companies don’t do this because hiring is expensive and $30k is fun money for finding a person.
There are a bunch of ways to phrase a no as a non-committal “do better” while saying this is less than I make or have been offered.
my point is you're advocating lying/bluffing which is not a topic I'm interested in participating, if you're going down that path and get fucked I have 0 sympathy for you
They literally cannot ask you about your previous compensation so I see zero risk in saying that’s lower than your current rates. It’s not a lie.
Now, I’m looking up this and if you’re wrong I’m going to roast you so you feel it.
Edit: I looked it up and you have some splaining to do. There’s a salary band, it isn’t fixed. It says “reasonably expects” not “I will rescind offer if you ask for more”. Give proof or gtfo
Meta has their rate and that’s it. You can’t counter for contractor roles. Plenty of people willing to take them to concert to full time later
I’ve been able to negotiate about 3-5$ more per hour. It wasn’t a huge bump but my recruiter helped me.
Congrats
They wouldn’t budge on the rate but they did give me the option of fully remote, so I got something out of it.
Ok I’m gonna apply. I was avoiding it due to not wanting to live near Menlo park
Every contractor I have ever been involved with hiring (not at meta) has set their own rates (or bid them). I don’t know if you’re right but you deserve a sanity check from someone who does.
The idea Meta is paying contractors the equivalent of $60-90k/hr in the Bay Area is something I do not believe.
Meta has IC contractor rates that they publish in the job ads. There’s no negotiation as per the job ads.
Post one. I googled this and everything says you’re wrong, so I’m inclined to think you’re wildly misreading it.
Look it up yourself. They don’t pay $90k. It’s $89/hour - the same rate that they pay full time. They also give health insurance, you just don’t get stock or bonus.
No, I won’t. I looked them up and they don’t say that. Post one saying that or you’re trolling.
Don’t give me a null hypothesis for me to solve. They have a comp range, it isn’t a fixed number.
The $90k per hour is for the contractor being 1/2 to 1/3 salary due to lack of overhead and benefits.
What do you mean the same rate they pay full time? Full time rates are always negotiable.
Both.
If you ask for too much extra compensation, they can rescind the offer.
If you ask for a little bit of extra compensation, they will just say no.
Hmm thanks.
A) Seems like a no-brainer. B) I am confused. 2078 working hours in a year * 89 makes this 185K. Not great for the Bay area but a decent salary. Why are people saying 30K-60K in the comments???
If you take holidays and vacation it's more like 1800-1900 hours. You have to pay more taxes, find your own or pay the full cost yourself for health insurance (easily $200 or so a week), no benefits like 401k matching or bonuses or stock
So total compensation wise it's probably closer to a 120K full time role. So way more than 60 still but lots to consider
I tried countering with Google with another offer from Target in-hand, while employed at my last job, and my recruiter deadpanned and said something like, “It’s Google, would you really walk away from that over a few thousand dollars?”
That’s the thing with applying to FAANG companies — unless you’re going from FAANG to FAANG, you don’t really have leverage to counter because there are always hundreds of other similarly eager and qualified candidates to take your place.
You’re unemployed. Take the offer, get your job, and take things from there.
How was the interviewing process? Significantly simplified compared to standard meta recruitment (multiple rounds etc.)?
Just 3 rounds. Initial technical round on sql. Case study. Behavioral star method.
Why are contract roles so low paying in the US based on what I see? Here in EU 100/hr is very common
Use that offer to leverage the other ones.
Oh that's right it's the only one.
🙄🙄
I mean in this jobs market I would definitely take what I can get until a better opportunity appears. You don't know how much longer the job search might end up taking. After I was laid off from Meta I took a significant pay cut working at a startup for year. It wasn't ideal but I made money while searching for my next role. Eventually I landed a good job an SP500 after looking for a year. Would you be directly paid by Meta or via an external staffing agency? A friend of mine worked as a contractor there for several years. He did eventually convert to FT (probably took 3 years). Note unless they changed the process you will have to pass the technical interview in order to convert.
I’d try to negotiate to the top of the salary band. Take that offer, put it on your resume, and keep applying. When companies ask why, say it’s contract and you’re looking to secure a long term role.
Were you serious when you said that market rate for FT for a similar position is 2-3x their offer?
Dreadful advice. There will be 10 others ready to accept the standing offer. The market isn’t 2021 anymore, they will rescind and go to the next person. Salaries are being depressed currently
Worked at Meta as a recruiter. Take the role, buy yourself a year and get some great experience at the same time. You may convert to perm or can look elsewhere during/after
In engineering, generically, if I make $100k a year my contractor rate is $200-300k (ie 2-3x). I have to cover extra taxes, no 401k match, health insurance, sick and vacation time, etc.
That’s normal for contractors. Now if meta is giving benefits it’s different, but there should be a band you can negotiate in.
Yeah I’m not sure that Meta follows standard practices when it comes to contracting because it has such market power. What I could see is total cost of comp when including RSUs, bonus and benefits getting close to 360k for a mid career data analyst position that is FT.
Does the job listing have a range? I looked up multiple contract positions and they all had ranges.
It’s up to you, how much savings you have, etc. Having done hiring myself, the idea of pulling an offer when someone negotiates (even contractors) is like cutting off my nose to spite my head. The bigger the company, the worse the damage.
Just having meta on your resume will be a future career bump, so keep that in mind.
The listed range is 47-65/hr 😂
Oh then take the offer
Just having meta on your resume will be a future career bump, so keep that in mind.
This is much less true of contract roles.
Do I need to list it as a contract role on my resume and LinkedIn? What’s standard practice for this? Is a future employer going to reject me if they run a background check and my role at Meta is contract instead of FT?
i don't think you do. the job description would just be "data scientist at meta - 1 year" or whatever, assuming they don't renew, which they probably will. BRB i've always countered in my contract negotiations. They might say no, but it's soooo unlikely they'll rescind. And if they say no, oh well, at least you tried. Also also- my counters have always been met with additional counteroffers, not just a flat out refusal to negotiate. You'll probably at least get a bump out of it.
2 missing replies
I would 100% take it. You can leave whenever + better chance of being converted to FT already working there as a contractor