Mostly equity; I joined a company the week of the IPO but accepted the offer before that. I basically got very lucky, but the base salary + equity any relatively big name post-IPO company would also be $200k-ish.

Keep in mind that I stayed at none of these companies for more than 2.5 years!

There were 2 brief interludes 1) Non-technical grad school, but that actually netted me a very slick summer internship one year that paid way better than my previous job too. 2) Failed startup, that paid nothing

Unfortunately, I think I've maxed out on the software engineer pay scale now unless I get even luckier.

Those are awesome and I'm sure well-deserved jumps. However, you definitely have not maxed out on the pay scale, especially if you're in SF/NYC. To quote patio11:

> Pick a number, any number: somebody does a lot better than that. For most numbers you’d naively think of, its an awful lot of somebodies. $100k? Not the top. $250k? Not the top. $500k? … Not the top.

http://www.kalzumeus.com/2015/05/01/talking-about-money/

Thanks for the response. I'm not a developer (yet... heh), but I think I'm probably within sniffing distance of the top of the pay scale for my particular role. It's a weird feeling to know, "Welp, this is the end of big raises," but at the same time, I'm incredibly relieved by the thought that I could go my whole life without another pay bump, even for cost of living, and still be totally fine. I wouldn't want that, sure, but so long as I don't get myself fired I'll have everything I need. What a ridiculously lucky deal we've found.

The less emotional benefit of getting higher in the pay scale is that job-switches can be about something more meaningful than just, "Oh shit, that's more money!" Now, so long as I can get close, I'll be happy to just go wherever would be most fulfilling.

Maxing out is not considered "unfortunate" by most definitions of luckiness. :-)

Depends. If he gets bored/unhappy at his current positing, then his options for leaving might be narrowed.

At that point, it seems like it just comes down to how much you're willing to pay to be happy. If your lifestyle inflates to the point that you can't take a pay cut, then yeah, that's a shitty situation, but I know of some folks who would gladly trade $50,000 for a little more free time, and in the next year or so likely will.