throwaway7561

Yea, Bay Area. I believe you. Obviously there must be a very wide range for L5. I suspect all you see when people post online are the really great ones, because after all who wouldn't want to talk about their great comp?! So, when all you see are the very highest-earners sharing their comp, you might start to think that they're normal or "usual". I've got 20yrs experience in the industry too, but mostly in no-name companies.

I'm an L5 at Google and don't even remotely make $500k. About half that, depending on how GOOG stock does. Yes, that huge number is probably not unheard of, but "not unheard of" doesn't mean it's common. So either 1. I'm absolutely terrible at negotiation or 2. Online comp statistics suffer from bias where people excited about their salaries tend to report it and the majority don't. I know levels.fyi tries to correct for bias, but it's very, VERY hard to believe $500k is COMMON for L5. Yes they probably exist. Yes, HN commenters probably skew towards "highly skilled" so you're going to see a lot of high comps here. No, we're not all even within striking range of $500k.

And L6 is very, VERY senior. Not ridiculously senior like the aristocracy at L7+ but L6s are rare and there's probably one of them for every ten L5's. L5 to L6 is a major weed-out promo, and not many people get that far. I've been trying for 5 years.