These sites are also heavy on selection bias. If someone arrives at this site with a $150K AI salary, they're not going to go to the trouble of submitting it and getting it accepted. Instead, they're going to start updating their resume and browsing job sites while they seek these higher salaries.
If I were to give some guidance, I’d suggest skipping on faang as they top out where they top out, and go downstream to smaller public companies who are growing and where you can deliver real value. Companies like snapchat doubled in 1 year, square doubled in 1 year, etc etc. If you’re already joining a trillion dollar company you need to enter as a leader to earn the top end.
You’ll never see these stats because 1) you don’t gain anything from sharing and 2) it’s easy to find who you are at smaller companies.
The other thing that I don't like is the money-worship around here. I don't want someone else to feel bad that they're "only" making $120k a year. I want more people to help their communities and get involved with our democracies to help craft better legislation to protect ourselves from an ever more technological world. It really, really doesn't matter what type of car you drive.
But I've noticed something over the years: The people that go out of their way to give back never hurt for money. Doesn't work both ways (I know plenty of wealthy people that are self-centred) but if you give back it's a happier, more fulfilled life and as a side bonus you get a lot of intros with great upside.
Do we just use FAANGs to mean every West coast software company? Because otherwise it is very typical of non-FAANGs as well.