No you are incorrect. That 224k is base at google not including equity. Staff engineers at google get a bonus and the majority of their comp is in equity, just like coin.

Source, I have a lot of friends who are former/current staff engineers at a variety of Bay Area companies. I also was a staff engineer at coin.

Also if you want to earn something like this in cash go work at Netflix when they start hiring again. They give you the option to be paid in cash.

I wonder if this is sort of imposter syndrome, where an engineer thinks a year of my time is just not worth $380k to $495k. We all know plenty of examples where good employees are worth this and much more to growing or very profitable companies.

Ask for what you can get and realize that you are worth more than you realize in the right situation. And never begrudge a peer who earns a lot.

The coin base is almost certainly total comp, especially since they give annual (rather than the standard 4-year) equity grants.

I’m guessing 380k is total comp, which is 498k for staff at Google.

Levels.fyi lists that number as base cash salary, yes. Total comp for a Staff SWE at Google is easily breaking $500k. It is also not a secret to anyone that cash salary at most tech companies tops out pretty low, because as you grow in levels, cash becomes a smaller and smaller portion of your total comp.

$224k/yr is below what a midlevel/L4 SWE would make at Google in total comp.

That’s low. I don’t think they’re using “staff” right.

Also, Total comp in 224k is more like $400k. 15% bonus target is normal with a possible 2x performance multiplier. 100k/yr gsu stock. 50% 401k match. To say nothing of the perks. On-site gyms, fantastic food, free shuttles.

Not that I’m advocating for working for goog, just saying.

levels.fyi shows $498,910 in total compensation for a staff level SWE at Google. Different companies compensate using a different blend of cash and equity. At a public company like Google, it's all liquid. Similarly, an E6 at Facebook gets $576,886.

These are also roughly speaking first-year salaries. You can expect a refresh grant equal to 1/4 of a new-hire equity grant each year vesting over 4 years, plus a staff-level can get a signing bonus of $50-100K.

After 3-4 years in a staff role you can easily be making $1-2M/yr.

It's probably not 380K base, which is very high, it's likely 300K base + 25% bonus target = $375K, give or take. That's not hugely more than any of the mega-caps have been paying in cash comp for staffie's for like 5+ years.

OP has clarified that it’s total comp and not base salary, as I had assumed. This is absolutely not out of the norm for engineering compensation at publicly traded companies. Levels.fyi has all of that data readily available.

"I asked what the role was in the comment you are replying to. Do you have data to back up the "huge swath" assertion? Certainly there are a few individual companies that have been able to provide specialized roles a $380k base salary, and companies who have been able to provide that and above on total comp thanks to an amazing run on equity value over the past 10 years. I don't think anyone is arguing that there are situations when this happens, that's not the point. It's irregular, it's naive to think that is the norm."

It's basically what the salary looks like in the USA at a top tier company in a top tier city. Go look at https://www.levels.fyi/ for base salary excluding equity. Equity goes up by level.

As for this role, it sounds basically like a mid career engineers salary. i.e 5-12 years of relevant experience. Hard to know exactly because geography impacts salary bands at Coin.

I can't remember what HR tells us, but I think we are targeting pay for the top 25% of companies/engineers in the USA.

"The OP specified salary- if they're referring to total comp, that'd be an important distinction for them to make in the future."

I work at Coinbase, it's not salary, it's total comp. I'm assuming the OP was a bit confused. At least half that figure is equity.

"Its anybodies guess what the actual value of equity in a total comp package will be a year from now. As an example, if you took a $380k TC package at Shopify 6 months ago and 40% of that was equity, it's now looking like $280k."

As I mentioned earlier, each year Coinbase give you a new equity grant priced at the start of the year. I.e thirty day average, I believe.

So if the equity tanks one year, the next year you will be reset to 380k total comp. Assuming of course we are not in a multi year bear market and you don't get laid off, which is always a possibility in tech.

Also some companies, such as Netflix allow you to take a cash only salary that would be comparable to this.

> Perhaps because the company lost half a billion dollars last quarter

So what? Last year COIN made $3.62B earnings. They may need to shift at some point, but I think it's incorrect to act like 1-2 bad quarters means a company should completely shift their plan. If anything, it's more important than ever to hire top people - which requires a decent salary.

"Perhaps because the company lost half a billion dollars last quarter and is in a controversial space facing regulatory scrutiny?"

Wouldn't you expect people to be paid more for working in a risky space? Also, please not Coinbase just announced a hiring freeze.

https://blog.coinbase.com/employee-note-an-update-on-hiring-...

Mid-level salary where? That is an insane salary _anywhere_, no wonder the market is beginning to correct for those inflated "mid level" numbers.