[rndmswethrwawy]

As a software engineer, a moderate amount of luck (passing the bar at Google, Microsoft, Facebook, etc.) combined with an aggressive stance toward your comp can absolutely take you from the $100k to $500k+ range. You will have to work for it, AND you'll have to ask for it, but it can be done.

I am the typical "leaned to program as a kid in the 80s/90s" engineer. Knew C when starting college, went to a state school for a bachelor's and master's[0], had a mediocre programming job immediately after. I joined Amazon at $100k base ($120k total) in my mid-20s. Left that after my signing bonus penalty expired for one of the other big players at 28 for $220k. Our stock has done well, but I've also made it clear to my managers that comp matters more to me than most other things when it comes to my job, and my refresh equity grants have been generous. Four and a half years later, my total compensation is just over $500k/year, and accelerating (my career has also gone well -- more luck there).

I work hard, but mostly within a 40-50 hour week (I WORK during those hours, though -- no visits to social media, no ping pong breaks, and I take my meals alone). I spend my nights and weekends with my family, and enjoy never having to budget despite somewhat extravagant spending.

I don't think I'm atypical for my peers at work. There are a lot of similar stories at the big players, so I'd say that $200k can be a step on the way to $500k+, although almost certainly not to millions (unless you save and invest well, plus even more luck).

[0]: Skip the MS. I stayed on because my undergraduate GPA was absolutely terrible.

[flachsechs]

i sincerely congratulate you, but my point stands ("or were simply granted some kind of employee stock"); that $500k is with generous equity compensation, and you are one of the lucky few who was able to get it, thereby probably doubling your compensation from a base salary of 200-something.

the vast majority of people do not get that kind of stock, the ones who are conned into over-working for their low-six figure jobs (you clearly do not suffer from this, and have avoided being dumb with your time and compensation).

unless i am mis-reading your post.

[rndmswethrwawy]

My argument isn't that it didn't take equity to get there, but that it's not intractable through "ordinary work". The big tech companies are essentially always hiring, and they're not the only ones offering marketable equity as part of the comp package. Yes, the performance of that equity can (and does) vary, but unless they're a company with Amazon's "total compensation philosophy" you benefit from the ups and the downs don't hurt too badly.

Between them FAMG employ hundreds of thousands of engineers, they're always hiring more, and within them comp in excess of $500k isn't rare (it's certainly not the median, but I suspect it's below the top quartile), hence my assertion that $200k can certainly be a stepping stone, if you're willing to put up with the BigCo open offices, reorgs, politics, etc. You seemed to be arguing that those tradeoffs aren't worth it as the $200k is very unlikely to translate into much more. I'm arguing the likelihood is higher than you were giving credit for, but perhaps we weight the concrete value of FAMG equity comp differently.

[flachsechs]

there are probably tens of millions of engineers in the world, a small percentage of whom work for FAMG. yeah, no kidding, you'll make a ton of money if you work there get equity compensation. you don't say!

[rndmswethrwawy]

Yet FAMG are always hiring.

This suggests an interesting asymmetry that could make a lot of people very wealthy. Either they don't want it, they aren't skilled enough for it, they've found another way to achieve it, they don't believe it, or our recruiting sucks.

[flachsechs]

> they've found another way to achieve it

there are literally thousands of technology companies you have never, ever, ever heard of, in the < $100 million revenue range. those are run by smart technical people who do not play nicely with others (i.e. wouldn't last an HOUR at google, even if they COULD get through the interview, which many couldn't, because FAMG interviewing process sucks), but are competent and rich.

who do you think is buying all your cloud computing services?

[mailshanx]

That's an inspiring story. Do you advertise yourself as a generalist or a specialist? When it comes to the actual role, how important do you feel is raw engineering ability versus managerial and political skills?

[rndmswethrwawy]

My work at Amazon was building services with Java and Spring Framework. I got that job based solely on general "algorithms and code on a white board" skills. My resume at the time was a scatter shot of some past Java work (Amazon doesn't really care) and some iOS stuff back in the early days of the app store.

I wanted to do something more systems focused, which prompted my departure. I am a capable systems programmer -- not sure why, systems stuff just "click" for me, but honestly I feel most of the value I bring to the table is as a generalist with at least "toy" experience doing a lot of other things. Particularly building systems software, work higher up in the stack helps with understanding what various workloads actually care about.

I like to think I'm one of those T-shaped people Valve describes.

I am not a manager (I'm an engineering lead). I'm ok at corporate politics -- I suspect a lot of people think I'm a pain in the ass, but I get quiet email's thanking me for being a pain in the ass from other people. Mostly I'd say my career/comp has benefitted from a optimizing for the reality of my job versus what I think I should have to optimize for. What's obviously valuable to me isn't necessarily obviously valuable to others. The ability to explain the value of my (and my team's) work so that others can recognize it is part of the job. This is particularly true as I advance -- a pre-launch executive review is basically an annual self evaluation with more on the line. The same metrics-driven approach works for both. Advancing past line-engineer in the big five means shipping successful products, and shipping means convincing executives with broad responsibility and limited context. If you don't do it, how can you be sure someone else will?

So, all of the above? Politics will probably take you further faster. Management (unless you're bad at it) is almost universally acknowledged to be an easier path to career advancement than being an individual contributor. I like being an engineer, though, so basically I optimize for how little of the other two I can do to maximizing the "useful" engineering I do (where "useful" is defined as engineering that ships, delivers value to customers, and ships in a product I can be proud of -- that last one is more important to me than comp, but I'd never let my boss know that).