What if Google or Facebook offer you $300k no risk, with a relatively standard work life balance. Then you have to really carefully weigh the startup equity package and how much you enjoy the respective work environments.
If. People here sometimes make it seem like a senior engineer can just walk into a FAANG, chat with the receptionist, and walk out with a $300k offer. While it is certainly not the hardest thing in the world, these companies are still pretty selective and only employ about 10% of the total seniors in the market. More likely than not you are not getting that kind of offer. This isn't even taking into account downleveling, which Google in particular is notorious for.
A month later Twitter offered me 35% more than Google's best and final offer for a more senior position. I didn't even have to negotiate or mention the rejected Google offer.
Oh, I should add that, in my case, the downlevelling was up front. The recruiter wouldn't even put me in for an L5 interview.
If you knew that you were being slotted for L4 upfront why did you even bother interviewing? I've seen L4s rack up multiple job offers from different companies and use that as leverage to negotiate; they've all been offered $300k+ or more. Not all experience/education is the same but you gotta know how to play the game.
It's all engineering, and the majority (10+) was pure software engineering.
> If you knew that you were being slotted for L4 upfront why did you even bother interviewing?
I didn't find out until late in the process, I thought I was going to get a better offer than I did, and I was trying to correct the mistake I had just made by accepting the job I was then in. I only realized my mistake after the offer came in and I considered what dropping back to L4 would mean.
> I've seen L4s rack up multiple job offers from different companies and use that as leverage to negotiate; they've all been offered $300k+ or more.
That would have been nice, but I barely had time to keep up with one company process at a time without arousing suspicion. I was close with Facebook, but I decided before the actual interview that I wasn't going to take L4 at any price. Facebook rejected me anyway, so it wouldn't have mattered in the end.
Sources: I know people in person who got these kinds of offers.
Keep in mind that you spend roughly half of your waking hours at work. It's important to do what you love during that time. I'm personally not a fan of spending my life to make tiny increases in some ad placement algorithm.