To answer my question, yes, you are in the valley and you got offers from 6 large companies including: Google, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft (LinkedIn), Amazon. T

To answer my question, yes, you are in the valley and you got offers from 6 large companies including: Google, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft (LinkedIn), Amazon. Thus it is utterly inapplicable to anyone not living in the valley (or not having that many offers at once). The offers were tightly packed and half of the companies dropped off rather quickly as you noticed. You should understand here that there isn't that much room to negotiate when dealing with 2 companies that ain't Google/Facebook. I think you give too much credit to yourself for negotiating while the outcome actually had fairly little to do with that. Don't get me wrong, it is great that you managed to get the job and it's fantastic that you wrote about it =) They are standard offers in the area (the cost of living being insane). On a rather low to mid level actually? Looks like one of the company decided to bump you one level and that's why you got a better offer in the end (you both worked hard for it AND you got lucky). Given how great you are doing at interviewing. You should go at it again within 1-3 years for the level higher (maybe L5 at Google/Facebook, ICT4 at Apple). Think of what you're having now as a stepping stone =)