[mgraczyk]

The part about pay is wrong, it's not comparing apples to apples.

I've been a staff engineer at Google and other companies, I have been an EM and a very senior IC at big and small companies.

If you're a very good IC, you can make a lot at a small number of good companies

If you're a relatively worse manager you can make a similar amount at many other companies

So the decision tree I would use is (focusing exclusively on compensation), if you're a very good IC, go somewhere willing to pay you >1M/year. If you can't get that you should be a manager