Personal experience from GOOG 3 years ago: Staff SWE, 220K base, ~200K stock grant per year (if you ship something really impressive, numbers go way up from the

Personal experience from GOOG 3 years ago: Staff SWE, 220K base, ~200K stock grant per year (if you ship something really impressive, numbers go way up from there). This is with "exceeds" perf reviews which is a baseline to stay in good graces. That is, in short, why startups have trouble hiring Staff SWEs from Google. From what I heard from my FB peers, comp is better there by about 15-20%, but work is more boring, and there's more politics. Why did I leave, you might ask? From a realization that you can't make all the money in the world, and intense desire to get off the treadmill. And make no mistake, Google puts you on a serious treadmill when you join.