Here's how to get $20k in 5 minutes tip for you:

Step 1: wake up and walk to your manager's office on monday.

Step 2: Announce that you're "considering" leaving for personal reasons to "explore what's around"

Step 3: Invite your wife [girlfiend or whoever] to celebrate $20k boost in your salary by the end of the day.

That's kind of low for L4, many L3s make more than that.

Not a SWE is the catch, though my primary job responsibility is coding. Also messed up the job search and had no competing offers. Now trying to figure out if it's worth leaving Google and getting a job hopper stigma over the fact that I'm well paid but not as well paid as others.

There is no such thing as a job hopper stigma, there are many valid reasons to leave a company.

Considering the cost of living in bay area and how in demand good developers are, if a company like Google is underpaying you, it's a perfectly good reason to explore new opportunities.

Yeah, thanks for the support. I also like my job and consider the SF office a perk, but I may interview a few other places to get a feel for the market.

Consider doing a ladder transfer to SWE or SETI. If you're performing well, it will be a probably successful but bureaucratic process... But certainly less work and less risky than quitting and finding a new job.

Got to get a hiring manager on a team with head count to sponsor you, and its political because my manager won't want to lose his team etc. Honestly seems simpler to leave and come back.

Depending on your team/group, it can also be worth starting a conversation with your manager/HRBP about allowing SWEs in your org (vs TSCs or whatever). Other groups (GTS in GBO, for example) have done this successfully.

Are you a TSC?