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by htormey 1492 days ago
No you are incorrect. That 224k is base at google not including equity. Staff engineers at google get a bonus and the majority of their comp is in equity, just like coin.

Source, I have a lot of friends who are former/current staff engineers at a variety of Bay Area companies. I also was a staff engineer at coin.

Also if you want to earn something like this in cash go work at Netflix when they start hiring again. They give you the option to be paid in cash.

1 comments

It's not incorrect, salary does not include equity. Total comp would be a combination of salary, equity, and bonuses. The OP refers to salary, not total comp. I'm using their information to reply in their thread. Happy to re-asses conversation at total comp (a different conversation) if they are referring to total comp instead of salary.
Coinbase isn't paying $380k base either..are you just quibbling over the meaning of salary?
I don't think it is quibbling. It is a really important distinction. Salary is (mostly) guaranteed. Equity isn't guaranteed at all.
It’s a bit pedantic to be honest. Multiple times it’s been pointed out on this thread that the OP was referring to total comp so I’m not sure why this keeps being brought up.

While equity in a public company can go down and go down significantly it’s liquid. Especially in companies like coinbase that don’t have a 1 year cliff, are public, it’s a significant part of your comp and not funny money like you get in many early stage companies.

> Salary is (mostly) guaranteed

Truth

The salary I banked at the beginning of the month is guaranteed.

>Equity isn't guaranteed at all.

Especially not at coinbase, whose stock has imploded to the tune of -75% just this year, and more since IPO.

To quibble even more, it's much harder (legally) to take away unvested RSUs than it is to demote / reduce salary.
The OP is confused, I work at coinbase and that figure refers to total comp. Also levels.fyi is listing salary and not total comp for the google position he is comparing.