When was its height? Even with stock packages at Apple I was getting closer to $250-$300k/year total comp. This would have been September 2018 until March 2021...

Height was probably something like mid-2021 to early 2022. But note that Apple (broadly, handwaving, obviously subject to stock price fluctuations, offer negotiation, time-in-role, etc.) pays their software engineers less than the other FAANGs. Substantially less than a few of them.

I don't know, I worked at a trading desk of a major bank. All the smartest PhD quant analysts worked from some Siberian village for like $20k/year. Those who really got the dough were the traders in NYC.