My L5 comp is ~$150k base and $140k equity per year (I'm based in UK, would be higher if I was in the US)
I work at a company in a similar situation (we get a lot of Xooglers and pay accordingly) and my L6 base is 250k and I have 150k worth of RSUs vesting per year for the next 3 years.
I do negotiate base aggressively vs equity so that might be skewing my view of things
The only company I see doing that somewhat consistently is Fa.. Meta, and they're slipping into the same place Amazon is, where they need to pile on TC to make up for an image problem
It's common at top companies - they are all competitive with FAANG comp. You will easily pull in $400-500k in total compensation as a mobile dev at sayyyy an AirBnB or similar. Roughly even split between base and equity.
If 400k (where I am with 250k base) to 500k (where I'd be with a 50:50 split) is the entire range you're mentioning, that's the same as saying "250k - 350k RSUs with 250k base is uncommon" isn't it?
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It might be relative to my situation: I have 8 YOE experience, I'm in mobile, and most people I can talk to candidly about salary are similar. So the numbers I hear directly might be tinted by the fact ~8 YOE isn't usually enough for band topping L6 offers
That being said, even Levels.fyi isn't showing me mobile devs negotiating 250k base without giving up anything on RSUs is a common situation (it definitely wasn't when I got my job, but even with the current market craze that feels like a stretch)
If I'm missing something I'm glad to know more, one undersold upside of the current market is you don't absolutely have to job hop to push for more comp
I was going by my tax filings, and because of the stock growth (and additional grants), I end up with 100+% yearly, but that's quite different from the initial award.
Thanks for pointing this out.
An exceedingly charitable view is that they're limiting downside, but realistically they're limiting upside so that you don't end up with people reaching targeted compensation for the next 4 years in a year or two and then leaving regardless of unvested shares
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But I also mentioned in a comment above, I think my view is skewed because I negotiate base aggressively
As an L6 I make 250k base, and my initial grant was just over 600k in RSUs at a non-FAANG company. I think that's a higher base than median but lower equity than median for FAANG
Barely removed from a lot of people taking massive haircuts as COVID darlings are down 50%+ from ATH
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To me equity is an investment you can't back out of for 4 years.
I'm not sure the bottom isn't going to fall off the market for tech period, so I'm happy to trade equity for the ability to have some control over my investment
If you're senior L5, it can be around 100% per year even before appreciation. Above that and it starts going above 100% per year.
Otherwise you're saying something like a 250k base, 1MM RSUs before stock appreciation... which is a very lopsided looking offer