$190k base + $10k signing bonus + RSUs = ~$300k total comp
> what your role/salary/experience is.
Senior full-stack engineer. Located in SF.
> How did you get your high salary?
Interviewed at many companies and received multiple offers. Kept every door open, made sure the company/team knew I was excited to join, and moved the negotiations and base salary forward. It helped a lot to have an existing open offer when companies asked what I was making previously. This anchored their starting offer.
> How have you been raising it?
Switched jobs my salary increased by $10k, $40k, $10k, and $60k. Contracting for 4 years increased my yearly income to $330k. The biggest raise was interviewing at 10+ companies and choosing the best offer. Got a lot of rejection emails too.
> Do you plan for it, or does the company reward you automatically?
I never received a substantial raise without switching companies. Larger companies with lucrative bonus programs might be different.
> Do you switch jobs a lot?
First company I stayed 5 years, second 3 years, third 1.5 years, fourth 6 months, fifth just started a few months ago.
Out of my friend circle I'm not the highest paid engineer. A friend just accepted a senior engineer position a recent IPO company making $210k base. Another friend is an eng. manager at a finance company making $1m but not sure if that's base or total comp.