[nimithryn]

I worked for a government contractor before moving to FAANG. We had transparent salaries at the contractor (it was a small company). As a senior engineer in FAANG, I make more than the president of the government contractor.

[scarface_74]

After a slight pivot as a mid level employee in the cloud consulting department (ie I make about 10% less than the equivalent developer). I make more than my former CTO at a startup.

We were talking at lunch one day after I left and we started talking about. Don’t cry for him. The prior company we worked at together, had an exit that was 10x revenue and he left soon afterwards.

He is in his 50s and said he was just working now because he “didn’t have anything better to do” since his wife who has a VP of data analytics at a telecom wasn’t ready to retire.

He did say that he has never made that much at any of the smaller companies he worked at. Again, he’s doing well for himself. It doesn’t take that much money in the grand scheme of things to have a good living “only” making in the mid to high 100s in most metro areas in the US.

I had my first house built in the burbs (2500 square feet) making $70K in 2002 and my second (3500 square feet) making $135k in 2016.