Median household income in Santa Clara County is $140k.

How on earth can you say that $350k is "not that much"?

I mean the average software engineer salary in the area is like 220k-240k.

I meant for like, you know, regular people.

Also, I'd be curious to know where you get your numbers from - simply because numbers for total comp (across all companies) seems hard to come by. One can't go by what's posted on levels.fyi of course, because that's skewed heavily towards people who have ... something to brag about.

>350k is ... not that much in high cost area like Bay/NYC/Seattle

Yeah it really still is. Living in the bay area as a single 20 something making that kind of money you are approaching 1% status. Rent is a little higher sure, but what really is the difference between $2k/month and $4k/month when you're bringing home $20k+/month? And everything else in California besides housing is the same as anywhere else really in terms of cost of living.

For the record.

You don't bring 20k+ per months, more like 9k+ after tax/401k contribution. And stock grants are liquid assets, but they are not cash, and most people I know won't exercise them right away, so they are still numbers in certain DB table

401k contributions are still savings, deduct that (at a max contribution rate that’s like 1.5k) and you’re at 10.5k a month. The bit about stock grants is meaningless, if it’s a public company that is straight cash.

Eh for those liquidating them, most are turning most into equity in other companies/funds - ie a number in the same sort of DB table, albeit with a different ticker attached.