[ivanech]

I found all the napkin math in this befuddling.

I’m not sure where these “per day” benchmarks are coming from -— is this supposed to be executive pay or mid-level/senior engineer pay? Because $5k - $10k / day works out to $1m - $3m / yr (depending on if you use 200 working days / yr or just 365). Which, yes, happens (esp with good year of stock appreciation) but is not as common as the prose makes it seem.

Also these numbers come from companies like this? “These companies aren’t Google or Apple, but rather some tractor company or heavy manufacturing company just churning out results for year.” Seems unlikely! The post says they fly under the radar, but are there any examples? In general, non-tech companies pay software engineers significantly worse bc you’re a cost center

And this footnote: “if you do the math using practical inflation and cost of living going up 7% to 13% per year” — if you’re going to claim extraordinary inflation over the last decade like that, please share how you arrived at the number!

[titanomachy]

He mentioned he has 20+ years of experience, so I think he is in fact comparing to VP-level roles. Most people I’ve met at faang who are over 40 are in fact seniorstaff+ or director+, so it’s not as insane as it seems on first blush, although I think to reach his numbers you’d have to factor in stock appreciation as well.

I also think far more people leave faang altogether than reach VP level.

[ivanech]

I think you’re right, I see that his resume links to Distinguished Engineer roles at Google / Amazon. Which … I don’t know. At my FAANG-adjacent company, there have only ever been _low_ single-digit number of ICs at that level. We’re talking 0.1-0.3% of all engineers. And they had insane track records.

And FWIW I think that there’s at least an order of magnitude more “happy L5s” older than 40 at FAANGs than senior staff+

[titanomachy]

> I think that there’s at least an order of magnitude more “happy L5s” older than 40 at FAANGs

This doesn't match my experience. Can you say which FAANGs?

I think in a healthy company it should be true, but my org at Google (~50 engineers) had one 40+ L5. He told me he was frustrated after repeatedly being passed for L6 promo, and he retired at 45.

The L7+ people (my managers and directors, as well as the org staff+ engineers) were all over 40.

I didn't interact much with principal/distinguished engineers, but I think even L7 is pushing 7 figures nowadays.

[ivanech]

Ha! I was thinking of Google specifically. I imagine it varies significantly then. Maybe 40+ L5 is not an OOM more common than 7, but L5 + L6 I think safely is. Agreed on L7 pay, very doable.

[titanomachy]

Yeah I knew a decent number of people happily parked at L6 for sure.

[SamvitJ]

I don't the claims he's held anything like Distinguished Engineer roles at Google or Amazon: https://matt.sh/files/a-resume/resume.html.

[ivanech]

Click the links for “Available” and “Employment” at the bottom — they link to what I assume are the roles he’s looking for