[prepend]

> staff Eng level, many thousands of people

I don’t work at a FAANG so I could be totally off but I think there’s only about 1,000 L6+ at google [0] and they employ the most. So it’s not thousands of people at this level within a company. Maybe only a few thousand in total of all companies in the US.

[0] https://www.quora.com/How-many-people-are-at-each-level-of-t...

[deanmoriarty]

I firmly believe you are off by an order of magnitude at least.

First, the comment you linked is 7 years old. Most FAANG companies increased their headcount many fold ever since.

Second, there is such a thing as title inflation, over time more and more people get promoted to their terminal level, which at my FAANG is very often L6, each tiny team has always at least one or two of them. There are many, many more than 937 L6s at my company. Hell, I know for a fact that there are several hundreds of distinguished engineers (L9) at my company, which is an incredibly hard level to reach, so do the math and then scale it across the entire valley.

Third, do not discount my comment about L5 compensation reaching that $500k+ level very often. L5 represent a very large portion of the talent pool, probably the first or second largest (after L4).

You clearly do not have to believe me nor take my word for it. Not a problem. I just want to make sure other readers hear both sides of the conversation.

[throwaway7561]

I'm an L5 at Google and don't even remotely make $500k. About half that, depending on how GOOG stock does. Yes, that huge number is probably not unheard of, but "not unheard of" doesn't mean it's common. So either 1. I'm absolutely terrible at negotiation or 2. Online comp statistics suffer from bias where people excited about their salaries tend to report it and the majority don't. I know levels.fyi tries to correct for bias, but it's very, VERY hard to believe $500k is COMMON for L5. Yes they probably exist. Yes, HN commenters probably skew towards "highly skilled" so you're going to see a lot of high comps here. No, we're not all even within striking range of $500k.

And L6 is very, VERY senior. Not ridiculously senior like the aristocracy at L7+ but L6s are rare and there's probably one of them for every ten L5's. L5 to L6 is a major weed-out promo, and not many people get that far. I've been trying for 5 years.

[deanmoriarty]

Something is off here… are you based in the Bay Area?

I literally have PDF copies of offers I received in 2018 from both Facebook and Google for L5 roles in the $400k range, and things just went significantly crazier since then. And I am the most average engineer you can imagine, with most of my peers in a similar situation.

I cannot comprehend how your TC can just be $250k at Google after 5 years of refreshers. That’s like L3 comp in the pocket of the organization I’m at.

[throwaway7561]

Yea, Bay Area. I believe you. Obviously there must be a very wide range for L5. I suspect all you see when people post online are the really great ones, because after all who wouldn't want to talk about their great comp?! So, when all you see are the very highest-earners sharing their comp, you might start to think that they're normal or "usual". I've got 20yrs experience in the industry too, but mostly in no-name companies.

[lumost]

In my experience, the discounted factor is that you don’t get promoted to the top of the next level band but people are hired into top of next level band quite frequently. This bias favors moving companies regularly.

however, in practice, few are able to land such positions when interviewed externally - I’d believe the pass rate for L6 is less than 1 in 10. Even after accounting for screening steps.

[disqard]

Thank you for injecting a much-needed reality-check into this discussion. My experience corroborates yours too, so here's N=2, FWIW.

[glimshe]

My L5 Googler friend makes between 350K-450K (Seattle area) depending on the stock price. Work on your negotiation skills!

[seanmcdirmid]

Are you sure they aren’t pulling your leg? I’m an L5 in Seattle and I don’t see that much (still well paid, just not that well paid).

[glimshe]

I am 100% sure, I saw the paycheck.

[seanmcdirmid]

Ah, I really don't believe you now since much of that income is going to be from a once/year stock grant. There is no way you could tell how much they were making by looking at their paycheck (well, pay stub, who gets paychecks anymore?).

If you saw their w2 or 1040, your claim would be more credible, since that's when most of us learn how much we actually made in the previous year.

[jedberg]

I can tell you for certain that that number is off by a few orders of magnitude