The gravy train isn’t running as well as it used too, and even during the glory days it’s not like every FAANG employee was on a half a mil+ total comp… and not ever tech worker worked for FAANG.

You can get a very decent salary with amazing benefits and job security working for the government, living in a far lower cost area than SF or Seattle and retire early on a very generous retirement plan.

I’m not sure the DC is really much (if at all) cheaper than Seattle.

And GS salaries are bad. GS-15 tops out at like 160k at the most senior levels.

Maybe NSA puts them on a special track, but even that isn’t very good.

I’ve lived extensively in both Seattle and DC. DC works out to be cheaper at this point.

The GS salary, as you noted, is the bigger issue.

> living in a far lower cost area than SF or Seattle

If you're talking about DMV, it's not that different.

This random calculator has SF[1] as 15% more expensive and Seattle[2] as slightly less expensive

[1] https://www.forbes.com/advisor/mortgages/real-estate/cost-of...

[2] https://www.forbes.com/advisor/mortgages/real-estate/cost-of...

Ok but like 80-90% of FB engineers are E5s making ~300k+. That’s a lot more than an upper limit of 160-185k (sibling comments). And cost of living in Seattle is not substantially higher than DC.

> That’s a lot more than an upper limit of 160-185k (sibling comments).

The GS upper limit is on base pay. Just as with FAANG, you'd have to look at bonus structures too.

It's definitely not the same as FAANG upper limits, but it's also going to be a more stable and steady-paced job that still pays more than the median developer salary.

There are a lot of burned out ex-FAANG employees out there who will gladly take a pay cut to work at a different pace. Not all of the FAANG jobs are like the "I only work 3 hours per day and make $300K per year" anecdotes that get posted here all the time.

I'd be keen to hear from anyone familiar with GS compensation about typical bonuses you might expect in any given year. I suspect it's a lot less than $100k.