[lacker]

"Top of their field" isn't the right way to put it. Entry level at Google means roughly, someone with no experience, or maybe one year of experience. Usually a new graduation from college. However, based on all the interviews and so on, Google thinks they are one of the top new graduates.

Someone who is the "top of their field" and gets employed at Google, like someone that people in a specific technology would know of, would be making a lot more. It depends a lot on what that field is, but making over a million dollars yearly wouldn't be surprising for an individual contributor.

For a more "middle" statistic, someone who is average-quality for a Google engineer, and has five years of experience, would be making around $350,000.

My source is https://www.levels.fyi/ and the verbal descriptions of what exactly the levels mean come from working there. L3 is a new grad, L5 is a solid contributor with some experience, someone "top of their field" would be L6, L7, or more.