No, it is not "easy" to get that. Most Bay Area jobs are not senior engineers at Google. Like I said before, a mid-level salary in SF is somewhere around $130k. The numbers are well-documented.

If you win the stock lottery, or stay in the industry for a while and become one of the top 10% of earners, you can do upwards of $200k. But that excludes the bottom 90% of jobs, which is what most people actually have.

As a PSA to all junior engineers: if you actually believe you can "easily" earn over $200k in the bay area, I strongly encourage you to take some phone screens before acting on your notions. Tell companies your salary expectations in advance.

I agree with you and don't believe the high salaries reported here. The best reference set is the H1B salary data which trends with the glassdoor self reported data.

https://www.foreignlaborcert.doleta.gov/performancedata.cfm

The folks making closest to 200k or higher are largely Computer and Information Systems Managers in Santa Clara county at levels 3 and 4. I imagine these are Senior Directors or VPs.

http://www.flcdatacenter.com/OesQuickResults.aspx?code=11-30...

Look through these:

https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/search?q=salary+s...

H1B data doesn't include stock or bonuses.

The argument is that the expected value of salary + rsu/stock/options is effectively just salary. These reddit posts basically agree with H1B data. Salaries are the bar. A H1B has to be paid more than the prevailing wage for the position and the company has to have documented that they could not find a qualified American for that role. Prevailing wages are set as a function of the H1B + American workers so over time salaries rise.

But that's not the case, since salaries are significantly less variable than stock comp.

For high paying jobs, salary is 50-80% of total comp. For lower paying ones, it's 95+%, which is what the salary surveys show.

So comparing salary only, you strongly bias against top paying positions since salaries make up a smaller portion of the compensation for those positions.