[JMTQp8lwXL]

> SWE can pay upwards of $500-600k after 5-10 years of experience.

Just like stores have "up to" 70% discounts. One item is marked off that much, and the rest are given modest discounts.

We shouldn't normalize this number as some plain old average, it'd be aspirational for many.

[gravypod]

(Opinions are my own. I know nothing about this program.)

Using StackOverflow's [0] aggregated statistics of pay based on experience + location we can get some rough estimates

Over a 5 to 10 year span as a developer at Google you'd probably touch: Java, Golang, C++, Python, and some part of GCP (or very similar tech). Pay is also different from market location so if we look only at the USA we can look at SF and Manhattan.

5 years:

    - NYC 25% 96k, 50% 126k, 75% 166k
    - SF 25% 113k, 50% 149k, 75% 197k

10 years:

    - NYC 25% 107k, 50% 141k, 75% 186k
    - SF 25% 126k, 50% 166k, 75% 219k

This is also ignoring the FAANG bump that you get from being Xoogler. Also, if you don't get a promotion or are unhappy with your compensation Facebook's levels are an approximate 1:1 mapping to Google and from what I've heard going from Google to Facebook and back to Google is quite common. Some people have joked that there are people that are on a 2 year rotation back and forth.

Some more data can be gleamed from here: https://www.levels.fyi/

500k+ is L6+, while very difficult to obtain, seems doable if you are determined, know your stuff, know how to find the "right" projects, and are also an inspiring leader.

[0] - https://stackoverflow.com/jobs/salary

[lrem]

I have hit L6 after 7 years of steep upward trajectory. I have been hired with a PhD and four years of part-time industry experience. I got it now because two years ago our org got a new leader with a mindset very similar to mine, while at the same time a solution I've been developing for a couple years was just found by a tens-of-billions-usd problem.

Sure, over the 7 years I've met a couple engineers with a similar trajectory and one with a steeper one. But the vast majority will either take more time to get to L6, or plain decide to stay forever at 4 or 5.

[skt5]

L3 to L6 in 7 years is very impressive. Even L4 to L6 in 7 years is impressive. I would expect a talented engineer would be able to go from L3 to L6 in 10 years.