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When a recruiter contacts you, be friendly, and tell them a high number for your desired salary (I suggest starting at $200k). Soon you will get a feel for what they are willing to go for, and sometimes they will even tell you directly what their maximum is. FWIW Right now in Silicon Valley, $170k seems to be the max for senior devs, and $200k is actually reachable for managing tech leads.

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I've seen $350k-400k for a lead frontend position around the Valley, and $250k + bonuses for a director of engineering position in the Valley - these are firsthand numbers. The numbers possible are higher than you might expect, and I am even relatively young in terms of experience (a little under 4 years).

I can only assume you are including stock options in these figures.

If you're getting those, you're probably managing hundreds of people.

The frontend lead position is for a pretty small team, and the director of engineering position is for a Series B startup.

I assume you are excluding the top companies or not considering stock and bonus compensation? Because $170k is closer to a new grad compensation package at places like Google or Facebook.

or not considering stock and bonus compensation?

Yeah.

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