If your desired comp number actually is $1M/year, will that just flag you as a joke to Triplebyte companies? With post-pandemic stock price increases a lot of engineers at FAANGs are making more than that now.
For any reasonable definition of "a lot", no they absolutely are not. A lot of people with 2+ years of experience who've either been promoted once and received a strong annual review, or switched jobs as a mid-level industry hire are making in the 200s and 300s, a few pushing into the 400s. Much more than that and you're looking at the top 1% (or less) of engineers at the top companies. Not a lot.
Source: was a mid level engineer at a FAANG until I left late last year, knew seniors and principals and their comp. Nobody was making $1M/year.
Nobody that makes 2x what their coworkers do at the same job/level casually discloses their comp at the water cooler.
A) your company is engaged in disturbing monopolism; B) your company is engaged in disturbing labor exploitation and arbitrage; or C) your company is engaged in disturbing environmental destruction.
Would love to be proven wrong. Am I?
Edit: option D) is that American cardiologists are not as exclusive and skilled a labor force as I would prefer to believe ;)
They’re all doing well, but even Amazon hasn’t doubled their stock since prepandemic.
There are definitely more people making 1m/yr at FAANGs than their were last year, but I agree with others that it’s not “a lot.”
AMZN in May 2019 = $1775, today = $3496, 96% appreciation.
AAPL in May 2019 = $43.77, today = $130.87, 198% appreciation.
GOOG in May 2019 = $1103, today = $2508, 127% appreciation.
That's all over the last 2 years. Market low was apparently Dec 2018, before the Fed started cutting interest rates, so the numbers are a bit bigger since then. They were pretty steady through 2017-2019, so anyone who got grants or refreshers during those time periods has benefitted from that appreciation.
Also, staff level is a tiny slice of the engineers at FAANG. So still not “a lot” even if your stock appreciation numbers were correct.