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Comment by OnlineGladiator | Hacker News Reader

> like notable entertainer or cardiac surgeon

Google says cardiac surgeons make $400-800k, assuming that's true a very talented engineer at FAANG can easily match this (staff or senior staff level) without being mired by an additional 10 years of school. I personally know engineers making 7 digits in liquid compensation. Obviously these are not your average engineers, but it's doable if you're the 1% (to be good enough for FAANG) of the 1% (to be amongst the best at FAANG) of engineering talent - so this isn't most people.

Just throwing it out there because I imagine most readers here are engineers and you make it sound like it's an impossibility for any of us. I bet at least a handful of readers here are engineers making over $500k.

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You also need to consider that the median tenure at these type of companies are 2-3yrs[0][1][2] (1.1 at google!). In my experience that's not enough to get the full stock grants.

So even from those that could make it very few stay long enough to make these great riches your imagining.

[0] https://www.payscale.com/data-packages/employee-loyalty/full... [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/average-employee-tenure-rete... [2] https://brobible.com/culture/article/how-long-employees-stay...

The average tenure is short not because people are getting fired for underperforming. It is short because 1) a lot of people get hired with massive YoY growth even for their size, and 2) people leave to earn even more at other companies in which case they’re still getting the compensations discussed here.

Google and I believe Facebook have uniform monthly vesting, so these figures are accurate for any amount of tenure.

TC is not computed using the total value of your grants, it’s based on the amount that will vest over the course of a year. Yes, that means there are engineers getting grants of $2m+ over four years (putting TC around $700k+)

I'm not imagining these numbers - I've seen offers from Google and I also know what I make (as well as what many of my peers make). Standard procedure is for vesting to start pro-rata after 1 year, so even the short-term Googlers you mention would hit their $500k+ annual targets. As another commenter pointed out, I am talking about annual stock, not total.

The most accurate source for compensation I currently know of is https://www.levels.fyi/

It's not an impossibility. Nothing is an impossibility. We are all temporarily embarrassed millionaires and most of us are temporarily embarrassed for life.

Yes, very reassuring for the remaining 99.98% of us, I'm sure. Besides, while it's still a great salary, cost of living for most of those people is insane.

I seem to remember some one on here recall hearing a couple of transplant surgeons comparing notes where the comp was measured in millions.

I could easily believe that. I just went with the data I had. If you can find a source please share.

There are 4000 Cardiac Surgeons in the USA.

Do you think there are 4000 engineers that make over $500k?

I'm not sure what the point of this comment is, but I believe there are many, many more than 4,000 engineers that make over $500k. I'd guess it's an order of magnitude more. I bet well over 1,000 engineers just at Google alone make over $500k. Then you have the rest of FAANG, the unicorns, high frequency trading, and other industries known for paying extremely well.

Engineers at Google can make over $500k starting at the staff level, so I think my estimate of 1,000 is pretty conservative considering the company has over 100,000 employees.

https://www.levels.fyi/

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