My income history, as a SWE/tech lead at a wide variety of different companies (FAANG, small startups, medium public companies, financial institutions). The below is the sum of vested liquid equity (liquid as in “cash received in my bank account”) + salary + bonuses:

- 2010: $18k (internship comp back in the days haha)

- 2011: $84k

- 2012: $119k

- 2013: $119k

- 2014: $99k

- 2015: $159k

- 2016: $195k

- 2017: $258k

- 2018: $715k

- 2019: $272k

- 2020: $1.2M

- 2021: $1.2M

I also have a sizable amount of illiquid pre-IPO equity from a previous employer that is currently valued at around $6M (from one of those earlier years when I was earning peanuts compared to who was already in FAANG), but clearly it could very well all go to $0 before I can tap into it (no opportunities for secondary unfortunately), so I’m not counting it anywhere.