[tracer4201]

$160K (US Dollars) is definitely on the lower end of FAANG for a software engineer.

My recommendation to folks is work at a FAANG at least for 3-4 years. You won’t be able to afford the kind of home you can get in Houston, Kansas City, Nashville, etc. but the experience and typical scale of problems you’ll work on is well worth it. To be clear, I mean home in terms of Seattle, Bellevue, Redmond pricing. I live in Bellevue, WA.

Source: been at two different big tech companies over the past ~10 years.