[madamelic]

I've always heard the L5 ($210k on levels.fyi) is generally the highest the vast majority of people will ever get.

Is that incorrect? I know I've just heard that promo boards are really difficult to get to Senior and anything above that basically requires a miracle / someone far above gunning you.

EDIT: See above. I already addressed the fact TC is much higher. I am only talking about cash comp.

> Yes, you'll get your salary again in stock but you aren't necessarily getting left behind by choosing to punch lottery tickets because you enjoy it.

[moandcompany]

The typical software engineering employee at a company like Google will be L4 or L5. Staff-level (L6) and higher is a relatively small percentage of employees.

The base salary and bonus component will be in the ballpark of $200k/yr USD (base salary * 15% of base salary). Annual RSUs will often be $100k/yr.

[nerdponx]

> Yes, you'll get your salary again in stock but you aren't necessarily getting left behind by choosing to punch lottery tickets because you enjoy it.

But you are. $100k in liquid stock is worth about $100k. Startup options are expensive lottery tickets. One is worth substantially more than the other. Therefore one amounts to substantially greater compensation than the other.

[forrestthewoods]

> I am only talking about cash comp.

You're talking about it wrong. RSUs are functionally equivalent to cash, and taxed as such. You can't talk about only cash comp. If one person is making startup $200k cash + lottery ticket and another person is making $200k cash + $200k RSU then yes the startup person will get left behind if their lottery tickets never hit.

> heard that promo boards are really difficult to get to Senior and anything above that basically requires a miracle / someone far above gunning you.

Nah. I don't know Google's exact ratios. But I would estimate that ~10% of their SWEs are L6 and 3-5% are L7+. I think pretty much anyone can hit L6 if that's a goal. The percentage of SWEs that have 15+ years experience and are L6+ should be relatively high. The bulk of the workforce is quite young. Varies by company and I haven't worked at Google but I have worked at FAANG. They're all pretty similar afaict.

[loeg]

> I don't know Google's exact ratios. But I would estimate that ~10% of their SWEs are L6 and 3-5% are L7+.

It's similar at Facebook. Something like 10% are L6+ (mostly L6 and very few L7+).

[brotchie]

From direct first-hand experience the numbers for SWEs on levels.fyi for Google are accurate.

You almost always get your full bonus (or more) and (depending on the size of our RSU grants) you vest either quarterly or monthly and can usually sell immediately (barring an imminent earnings release).

So for all practical purposes (at FAANG at least) the total comp is cash equivalent (even though it's a combo of base + bonus + RSU).

[morgante]

L5 is correct, but you should be looking at total comp (not just base).

L5 at Google is $372k which is enough to get to CoastFIRE after a decade.

[loeg]

L5 is correct but total comp is a lot higher than $210k.