Compensation is really good in tech, but I don't think saying "$500k/yr total comp for average engineers" is helping anybody.
The $500k plus is L6+ or Netflix-like companies
Those RSUs and refreshers are always granted based on a dollar amount that gets divided by current stock price, and that’s the value that the company recognizes in its accounting. Stock price increases are nice, but they distort the picture of how the company is valuing your compensation internally.
When people come into HN salary threads and say things like “software engineers make $500k” what they really mean is: “Some outlier high level software engineers at a handful of FAANG companies in the Bay Area can potentially top out at $500k total compensation in year 4 if they are in a fast rising stock market, and if they are master negotiators.”
This depends on the company. Amazon and Microsoft generally don't, but facebook and Google do. If I hadn't negotiated my initial grant upward, my refresh last year (year 3) would have been the same size, and the one I'll get in a few months will very likely be larger.
I'll still see a drop in comp year 5 due to an interaction between stock growth and my first year's grant being small, but ehhh.
> When people come into HN salary threads and say things like “software engineers make $500k” what they really mean is
Yes and no. Like L6 is certainly not common, but it's also not a particularly outlier level (I can crank of a list of 10 people at that level I work with on a weekly basis), and they're probably all pulling in something close to 500K, and will be forever.
(from my own experience) Absolutely not.
https://www.levels.fyi/ you can't scroll 15 seconds there without running into a $250k+ compensation package.
This also doesn't like up with my experience. It's hard to get true averages for things like this in America.
Also, 250k is a lot less than 500k. It's still a ton of money -- I don't mean to say that top companies don't pay you well. They absolutely do. But 500k is a TON of money.