Here's mine. Bay Area the entire time, and similar promotion history. Based on pretax W2 (hence, including all cash bonuses and stocks/options):

1999 65K

2000 86K

2001 90K

2002 107K

2003 101K

2004 110K

2005 117K

2006 166K

2007 223K

2008 226K

2009 256K

2010 269K

2011 310K

2012 356K

2013 588K

2014 518K

2015 532K

2016 792K

2017 1118K

2018 1278K

I think your retention stock made the biggest difference compared to mine. Maybe it's time for me to try threatening to quit :D

Woah. I’m assuming this comp is mostly stock but wow this still seems insanely high. I suppose “threatened to quit” is the key here?

Still in VA?

Is it typical for senior SWE to make 1.2 million?

How can one reach that point faster?

Staff Engineers at FAANG typically make 400-500k/pa. What made the difference was a retention grant. I got a competing offer and they gave me millions in stock, which I accepted and stayed. After I was fully vested, I basically got lucky and found another big company that had a department that was doing some pretty undisciplined hiring and brought me in at Senior Staff. I'm not really doing the job at that level, but they don't want me to leave, so we're in stasis. After the initial grant runs out this will stabilize at ~700k.

I don't know how to repeat what I did. I think retention grants are rarer than they used to be. However, once you get to Staff, you have a lot of negotiating leverage. I received multiple offers with initial grants over 2 million.

Build relationships, progress your career, get good at whiteboard interviews, and change jobs more often to make progress.

Do you think it's possible and that your advice is still applicable if one doesn't have a degree?

Is there a glass ceiling?

Any advice on changing jobs faster in Cal but not bay area? For example, remote positions?

How often you changed jobs? And what kind of work do you do?

I've only changed jobs three times. I should have changed a lot more. I do iOS dev these days.

Says he moved to NorCal in 2005. I’d wager this is not typical, even for the Bay Area.