There are well over 100k US-based software engineers at the five FAANG companies alone, plus a long tail of other companies that compete with them for talent an

There are well over 100k US-based software engineers at the five FAANG companies alone, plus a long tail of other companies that compete with them for talent and offer similar (and in some cases higher) compensation. All of those companies can go over $250k in total comp for the equivalent of Google L4, i.e., one promotion above entry-level.