It's not unheard of for really exceptional devs at big tech companies to make a million or more.

"A million or more" in what? Base salary, salary + bonuses, or salary + handcuff compensation (e.g. options)?

That's what I'm trying to figure out. $600k salary+bonuses is C-level executive territory. The idea of an engineer making that kind of money in straight compensation sounds ludicrous to me.

If it's in the form of options, you'll forgive me if I treat that as pretend money until it's transformed into real wealth.

600k including bonuses. Vested RSU bonuses. So real cash in hand. And those usually keep replenishing over time so after an initial delay it's compensation.

Ah, so base salary plus vested options, aka handcuffs.

And you're getting, on average, what, 400-500k a year in RSUs vesting?

Am I wrong is that basically bonkers as far as compensation goes? That feels at least a few standard deviations outside the mean... Which is great for you, and congratulations!

But "win the lottery" doesn't make for very compelling early retirement advice. :)

That's alot of vested bonuses! Is this fintech?

fintech dev on wall street / the city probably can

Yes 600k is including bonuses. 600k base would really be crazy for dev.

There are people at Google making > $1M a year if you include RSUs.