Yes. You are right it's dynamic and does change. Certainly as more people are in your family (single->married->children) your cost structure that makes you happ

Yes. You are right it's dynamic and does change. Certainly as more people are in your family (single->married->children) your cost structure that makes you happy definitely changes. Issues tied to financial stability certainly will drive you to want to get a higher salary, especially with how impossible home ownership is in places like Silicon Valley. With that being said, if you aren't having to stare at your bank balance every morning and sweat your salary, then what makes you happiest at work is those other factors of things like Pink's framework of Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose. It's also the lack of those 3 areas that will make a job that pays sufficiently pretty damn miserable leading you to seek a more fulfilling job if you can find one that meets your salary needs. I bet there's a limit to what you'd put up with at work even if they paid you $1 million per year. Having worked in a number of early stage startups I have talked to a number of older members of teams I've been on who have forgone as much as $50-60k in salary to move from a giant company to a mid-size startup. That definitely affected their quality of life to do it, but it was worth it to wake up happy, despite perhaps making some sacrifices. As they told me, they had to make some adjustments in their lifestyle but then got used to it and it was okay. The other important factor that I would encourage you to look at Pink's research for is that it turns out if you use financial incentives to tie to creative tasks (like an engineer shipping features) it actually has been found in psychology studies to lower the quality of the work and the motivation of the person. This means bonuses are often a really bad idea. The good thing about a salary is that it is disconnected from a specific creative task.