Blind self selects for people who want to brag about how much they're paid and people who think they're underpaid who want to validate those assumptions. It leads to a toxic community.

There's so much more to work than compensation and this post proves it. Being on a good team is 100x more important than what you're paid. Good teams elevate engineers and give you a better career path in your future. I make SL level compensation and non-SL level companies because my value is high, not because my employer can overpay for mediocrity.

There's too many engineers who think the secret to success is to get hired at the right company and then they just sail on to a dream career. I've worked with enough people from those big companies who left, some after long careers, to know that it's simply not true.

A lot of people see the impactful work that happens at these big companies and assume that's the impact they'll make as well. What they don't get is those big companies literally poach PhDs or buy smaller companies to get that kind of talent.