Well, I'm not happy where I am :)

I have enough that would not be a problem if I made 20% of what I make today, but I don't have enough that money would never be an issue.

I'm not trying to optimize for money, but I'm not going to ignore it. From what I'm getting from this thread is probably be a founder might be a better fit for me rather than a startup employee.

One question to think about is how much longer you'd need to work in your current role to never have to worry about money again. Say you were to cut your expenses to the bare minimum, invest aggressively, and stick it out there another couple years. Would you have enough to be financially independent (FIRE)? I'm not usually one to advocate sticking it out at a job you don't like, but it seems you have a real chance to never have to worry about money again if you're willing to live a non-lavish lifestyle. Just something to consider.

How much do you think you need to retire, out of curiosity? Someone suggested you'd work 5 to 10 years more, but that seems like a massive nest egg. What do you need it all for?

In California, you’d end up paying almost 50% of that in taxes. Take another $100k for living expenses (could be much more if you have kids and an expensive mortgage), and you’re left with ~$400k to save per year. In 5 to 10 years you get to something like $2M-$4M (plus market returns). Doesn’t seem that insane of a plan.

I saw your other posts on the teamblind thread and wanted to ask a question about the compensation breakdown when it comes to negotiating a large salary like yours. But the reply feature is already locked there, so I thought I'd ask here. Can you please share what is your base/bonus/stock split, what you asked for, what they offered and how you negotiated?

These are the steps:

1) Perform as best as you can in the interview.

2) Ask the recruiter explicitly what level the hiring committee decided to put you at. This generally won’t be negotiable since it depends on your interview performance.

3) Go on levels.fyi and look at the data points for such company/level, especially the recent ones, and try to stay towards the upper band of the spectrum.

4) If the offer that comes in is lower, politely ask your recruiter to match those you see online, referring them to the above link if needed. Confidently say that if they won’t be matched you will not be interested in pursuing the opportunity (just say this if it’s actually true, since there’s a real possibility they might call your bluff).

My split is exactly in line with what you can see on levels.fyi, so please refer to those data points.

Thank you for taking the time to write this! This is very helpful.

Yes.