4 ms·

I have seen offers or been given exact numbers from 3 of the 4 companies in your list at the "staff engineer" level or equivalent ("principal" at both amazon an

I have seen offers or been given exact numbers from 3 of the 4 companies in your list at the "staff engineer" level or equivalent ("principal" at both amazon and microsoft), and they are nowhere near $500k/year. I have heard that at FB and Google, a very small percentage of engineers got special stock awards a couple years ago that could put them in that range. But most top performers at these places at the senior/staff level are more in the 175-350 range. Other than that, the only engineers making that kind of money got lucky in a startup lottery.

freyr 10y ago
I wouldn't rule out $500k for Google. It's not a super reliable source, but Glassdoor lists the average total compensation for a Google staff engineer at $420k. I doubt Apple, Amazon, or even Facebook pay that much on any regular basis, but I wouldn't rule out someone getting an outsized offer during a machine learning (or other flavor of the month) hiring frenzy. [1] https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Google-Staff-Software-Engineer-Salaries-E9079_D_KO7,30.htm https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Google-Staff-Software-Engin...