Total comp should never include options or benefits like medical/dental. It’s just cash or things with a liquid cash value. It’s not what hits your bank accou

Total comp should never include options or benefits like medical/dental. It’s just cash or things with a liquid cash value. It’s not what hits your bank account, though, because it’s pre-tax. And yes, FAANG TC of >600k for senior IC’s is absolutely a thing. The article is correct in a lot of its characterization. Your output is a lot of documents and strategic influence and not a lot of code (aka “getting things done”). But that doesn’t mean it has to be unfulfilling. You can get things done by making a compelling technical argument based on your experience and convincing hundreds of people to go build the architecture you envisioned. Do you get the thrill of debugging the code at 4am? No, you don’t. You only get that from skunkworks projects and side endeavors. But it’s still gratifying. And it pays embarrassingly well.