Stock options - private companies that give you options that aren’t liquid (usually) until an exit event at sone undefined time.
RSUs - a known amount of stock granted in a public company with a known vesting date.
I know people at those companies and they aren’t getting paid nearly as much at the senior level as even a mid level software engineer at one of the larger tech companies.
I have been on both sides and spent most of my time as an enterprise dev.
I didn’t even think about accepting the chance to apply for a role at $BigTech when a recruiter reached out to me that would have been $75K-$100K more than I was making if it meant that I had to move to Seattle.
I did take a permanently remote role that paid $60K-$75K more by doing a slight pivot from pure software development.
Everyone at my dinosaur financial company was getting them 15 years ago. Not a life changing amounts at my level though.
And stocks don’t always “go back up”. I would have hated for my RSUs to be worthless as my stock dropped 40% from its highs before they vested. At least I was able to sell them and diversify.