We will see, but I think there’s a real chance the former FAANG “market rate” due to their high flying RSUs might be gone for good for Engineering ICs, unless you’re well known in your area

Definitely interesting to see the perspective from the other side - thank you. It really is a different world. I am a (by all accounts decent) architect and a 23 year old junior (admittedly exceptionally talented) got higher TC at Amazon when he jumped ship after 3 months with us (his first job out of college).

He did ask if he could come back within a week, stating that the work env was horrible, and we told him he is welcome to if he wants, but at the end he decided to stay at Amazon. It's also not like we have a chill team - I just try to make sure people don't work OT unless it's strictly necessary (about once or twice a year). Other than that though, we do expect people to put in their 8 hours on a semi-flexible schedule.

Equity is also where the downside is!

I know what you were trying to say, but calling a smaller company "out of touch" due to not getting close to FAANG compensation in itself seemed a bit "out of touch" to me regarding the business realities of small companies.