Holy crap, I didn't realize that starting salary at Google was $175K. That seems a bit high for new college hires, but I suppose I'm comparing that to my salary as a freshie sdet.
Read the chart again. It says the median starting salary is $110,000. $172,000 is the median total annual compensation, which includes bonuses (and stock typically won't vest during the first year, which means total compensation for the first year is actually closer to $123,000).
This "fact" keeps getting repeated here. While it may be typical for Google, it is in no way typical for "the bay". Median salary is around $110K for sw developers, and I highly doubt people are getting 100% of their salary in RSUs and bonuses their first year.
Huh? $110k is low. $90k is the starting salary at a lot of companies in the Bay Area for an entry level software engineer.
Myself, I make $160k base salary at a small company in Palo Alto (was offered that at 2.5 years of experience), and know I could've gotten a lot more elsewhere.
At any rate, I've received more than my fair share of $200k+ 1st year total comp offers for _start ups_ in SF for positions that only wanted 2-3 years experience. So, I wouldn't be so surprised.
Google is an "elite" company, almost every engineer there would be one of the best hires any other company could ever make. Generous compensation is one aspect to accomplish that hiring goal (amongst other things)
Not true - they just lived through the interview process. I remember working with a former Google engineer at a startup who flat out told me that I was a better engineer than him.
It's harder to see who will be amongst the best engineers early on in someone's career. Each person develops their abilities at different speeds & times in their lives.