[MagnumOpus]

> $500-700k/yr here in total comp (a realistic proposition for senior engineers in hot fields)

Sure, but that level is paid to maybe 1-in-25 staff/principal/distinguished engineers at the top handful companies which make up maybe 1-in-25 of total jobs in the industry (order of magnitude)?

So for the 1-in-500 talents in the German coding industry, maybe it might be a worthwhile consideration to move halfway across the world with their families, but for the 499 even doubling their salary isn't all that enticing...

[gruturo]

But those tend to be the people who make or break your strategy. You know, the ones who pick the right vision and how to get there, which the others then can help implementing.

You don't really have a good army without decent generals.

[mrep]

Ah, the classic hacker news big tech pay disbelief. People in big tech quote their pay everyone just assumes that it is impossible or extreme outliers. Those are indeed realistic numbers [0] and L3 through L7 are just the standard well outlined levels. The true outliers are the 4 levels above L7 which pay even more ridiculous amounts.

[0]: https://www.teamblind.com/article/google-engineer---total-co...

[h4b4n3r0]

500 and 700k is about the level of comp of Google’s Staff and Senior Staff levels correspondingly, assuming a high yearly review rating. Let me assure you, there are a lot more of them than you think, at Google and elsewhere. It is true that almost all of the engineers at those levels are exceptional however.