According to Levels.fyi - and my personal contacts - https://www.levels.fyi/t/software-engineer/locations/san-fra... Median TC - something just-south of $300k TC (not salary) is more likely.
Furthermore, the higher you go, a greater proportion comes as RSUs, not cash - even if it was $400k TC, a good chunk of that is money you literally can't spend for a couple of years.
$500k for senior (L5) is kind of the expected offer these days. If you are interviewing at FAANG you are doing a huge disservice by using Levels and settling for $300k when you can pretty easily get $500k.
I joined a FAANG a couple years ago at $550k TC or so at 4 YoE for senior. It's grown to about $950k due to stock growth. I'm not sure what you mean by "I can't touch the money for a few years," I get a portion of it every few months.
Vesting cadence is typically quarterly or monthly.
Refreshers only being you up to the "standard" target TC (as defined by the company). So after their initial grant fully vests, most engineers will see their comp drop by a couple hundred k, even with refreshers.
This is a huge contributing factor to the low retention at big tech - it's why most people leave by the time their initial grant runs out.
...I never knew I could feel so insecure about my career.
May I contact you directly for some advice and questions?
But you're right that the TC of the average Google (or even FAANG) job has become somewhat mythical on the internet lately. I'm in a Slack where people have been asking about offers and TC for a long time. There are a lot of disappointed people who think they're walking into $500-600K job offers only to realize that they're "only" getting $300K from multiple companies.
Honestly quite frustrating, given that $300K with excellent benefits is an incredible job offer, but these people have been primed for disappointment due to unrealistic expectations.
I get being disappointed about $300k. Many companies are offering that for non-seniors (Google L4 equivalent) now. I distinctly recall TikTok offering well north of $300k cash for just 2 YoE a few years ago, and Meta offers have risen similarly.
I'd also be pretty sad if I interviewed elsewhere as an L5 and got offered less than what I made as a 2 YoE L4 (and many years ago, prior to inflation at that.)