Staff Engineers at FAANG typically make 400-500k/pa. What made the difference was a retention grant. I got a competing offer and they gave me millions in stock, which I accepted and stayed. After I was fully vested, I basically got lucky and found another big company that had a department that was doing some pretty undisciplined hiring and brought me in at Senior Staff. I'm not really doing the job at that level, but they don't want me to leave, so we're in stasis. After the initial grant runs out this will stabilize at ~700k.

I don't know how to repeat what I did. I think retention grants are rarer than they used to be. However, once you get to Staff, you have a lot of negotiating leverage. I received multiple offers with initial grants over 2 million.

Build relationships, progress your career, get good at whiteboard interviews, and change jobs more often to make progress.

Says he moved to NorCal in 2005. I’d wager this is not typical, even for the Bay Area.