No, it is not "easy" to get that. Most Bay Area jobs are not senior engineers at Google. Like I said before, a mid-level salary in SF is somewhere around $130k. The numbers are well-documented.
If you win the stock lottery, or stay in the industry for a while and become one of the top 10% of earners, you can do upwards of $200k. But that excludes the bottom 90% of jobs, which is what most people actually have.
As a PSA to all junior engineers: if you actually believe you can "easily" earn over $200k in the bay area, I strongly encourage you to take some phone screens before acting on your notions. Tell companies your salary expectations in advance.
I agree with you and don't believe the high salaries reported here. The best reference set is the H1B salary data which trends with the glassdoor self reported data.
The folks making closest to 200k or higher are largely Computer and Information Systems Managers in Santa Clara county at levels 3 and 4. I imagine these are Senior Directors or VPs.
The argument is that the expected value of salary + rsu/stock/options is effectively just salary. These reddit posts basically agree with H1B data. Salaries are the bar. A H1B has to be paid more than the prevailing wage for the position and the company has to have documented that they could not find a qualified American for that role. Prevailing wages are set as a function of the H1B + American workers so over time salaries rise.
But that's not the case, since salaries are significantly less variable than stock comp.
For high paying jobs, salary is 50-80% of total comp. For lower paying ones, it's 95+%, which is what the salary surveys show.
So comparing salary only, you strongly bias against top paying positions since salaries make up a smaller portion of the compensation for those positions.
If you win the stock lottery, or stay in the industry for a while and become one of the top 10% of earners, you can do upwards of $200k. But that excludes the bottom 90% of jobs, which is what most people actually have.
As a PSA to all junior engineers: if you actually believe you can "easily" earn over $200k in the bay area, I strongly encourage you to take some phone screens before acting on your notions. Tell companies your salary expectations in advance.