How do you jump jobs every 2 years if your shares don't vest for 4?
Startup stocks are ephemeral lottery tickets unlikely to ever make as much as 30% base pay bumps every 2ish years.
Now as an independent consultant I have no stock at all and still make more than the total comp of any FAANG friends.
This may be mitigated at FAANG because they vet heavily on leetcode grind.
Would love to hear your experiences doing this. I took a break from FAANG to do this, and I was making the same (which is great!) but doing utterly boring work (control over my hours was the point). And now I'm back at FAANG making almost double the equivalent since salaries there accelerate after 15+ years exp. You make 150-250 in the lower bands, but like 350-1M after that.