Engineer with 6 years of experience gets 7 offers and 800k annual comp

I also have to wonder if the cash bonus is recession proof. Inflation aside, aren't bonuses not a guarantee? Most places I've worked, bonus systems rely on meeting some certain goal.

In my experience, if the company isn't doing well, they will essentially make it difficult or impossible to get your bonus (eg. put a 25% growth in share price in as a condition of full bonus or something).

Quant cash bonuses are highly conditional and would rarely materialize at the quoted max possible levels. If they do at all, party don't last very long. OP is aggressive husler but his greedy optimization strategy isn't going to take him too far.

You haven't seen a firm like Jane Street, Citadel/CitSec, HRT, Optiver, Jump, IMC, and so many more. Quant firms aren't just hedge funds anymore, they can also refer to market makers whose primary edge is not just models and traders, but fast and scalable software. At a top tier firm like JS CitSec or HRT, cash bonuses _start_ at 60-100% of your base, even for SWE. In really good years by the time the end of the year rolls around, you can expect 100% to 300% of your base in bonus. This was especially true in 2020 and 2021. I can personally attest to this since I was working at a top tier MM during those years.

This post's "bonus" might also be including the signing bonus with recurring perf bonus. Typically, these firms offer sign-ons but OP did not seem to indicate that. Even with this in mind, I would expect with 6yoe your expected first year bonus would be at least 100% of base at a legitimate firm.

And quite frankly, given the volatility we have had this year I would expect market making firms to make a killing. Wouldn't be surprised if market making firms post a PnL that rivals 2020 and 2021 and bonuses reach that 200% mark.

There is always someone making shit ton of money but that doesn't make things "not unusual". In a typical mature big tech, I would say less than 5% of employees ever cross 7-digit mark. Often that requires massive hustling for years, personal health+family sacrifices and extraordinary amount of politics and betrayals to many colleagues. Some people are just wired for this and crossing 7-digit barrier is the most important thing in their life to be achieved at any cost. In my experience, there are many better joys to have in life than this hustle.

If by mgmt you mean ceo adjacent, sure

Based on OP's description of the interview process, I would guess so. I don't think many firms just ask "leetcode + sys design similar to FAANG interviews" besides maybe 2sigma and Jane st. I would expect to see C++ trivia, OS, or networking questions if it were at other firms but if OP isn't in some low latency/front office role places might not ask that.

(A) Only the base is real, given (B)

There is no crash. In fact companies which are actually proper businesses will get more VC funding since the funds have to go somewhere.

The crash is mostly in vaporware like Uber and Bolt.

It’s worth taking everything on Blind with a pinch of salt but what makes you so sure that it’s fake?