[PragmaticPulp]

Well said.

It’s important to acknowledge that these highly compensated positions do exist in unique scenarios for extraordinary people. They are attainable for someone with sufficient drive, dedication, and luck.

However, it’s equally important to acknowledge just how rare and unique those positions really are across the industry. $750K compensation isn’t a routine occurrence for engineers just going about their lives.

I’m part of a group mentoring program for CS college students. Some of their compensation expectations are completely out of touch with reality due to comments like this. We encourage everyone to do their research and negotiate, of course, but it’s getting frustrating to watch people distraught because they think their $180K TC offer in SV is a “lowball offer” or who think they’re going to get Netflix level compensation from some random company in their small Midwest home town.

[logicslave]

Its mind blowing to run the math on how many people work these positions. For instance, I know for a fact that less than 650 people at UBS make more than 500k in investment banking. Take that number, and all the biggest banks, and you have less than 10k people making more than 500k in investment banking at the big banks. This is miniscule. Yet people talk about these careers like they are viable, or even worth the time and effort. They arent, unless you are top of your class at Harvard, have connections, or are irrational.

Engineering is different in terms of the number of positions, but still, the high IC comp is pretty rare once you run the math