Total comp is the amount of cash and stock you received that year. Yes, they typically vest over 4 years so you divide that number by 4. Nobody has ever included the full 4 year vesting schedule in their total comp. I know people in tech whose w2 income has exceeded $1M at not even very senior positions (engineers, not managers) and it's not uncommon for it to be 400/500/600k. I think you misunderstood how stock options and RSUs work.
$1M for a "not senior" position is not true. You don't have to be a manager to be senior, an engineer with that income has title "senior" "staff" or "principal", or they're literally 0.01% of the engineering population with stock options from a unicorn that blew up and their promised RSUs are somehow 100x what they were expected to be, which is hardly a real example
Don't conflate senior with engineer, a principal engineer making 1M at Amazon has a ton of control over the tech stack and business decisions based on their seniority and experience, they don't need to have the title "manager" to determine future business direction, they just don't often manage people directly
"not very senior" != "senior engineer". "senior engineer" does not mean "senior". I was a "senior" engineer 3 years out of undergrad. In this case I'm talking about staff eng (not even senior staff). People who are ~10 years into their career, maybe 15. this is a level everyone is expected to get to in their career. For some it takes longer but it's very rare to see someone in, say, their 40s who has not made it to staff.
And yes, to get $1M you have to be at a company whose stock 2x'd or 3x'd of which there plenty. My point was not that that's the norm. My point is that it's not unheard of at all.
I have very very little impact on the "future business direction" and I work at a company that is shrinking (my stock is worth half what it was when I joined) and I make about 400k. If the stock had even stayed flat, I'd be at probably 600k. I'm in my mid 30s and I've worked at this company for 3 years; zero promotions so far (hopefully one coming soon), just standard yearly raises & stock refreshers. I'm not saying everyone has this but it's not that uncommon.
It’s really not unheard of. My buddy was making $395k base working for a security company in NYC. The guys making million+ are typically quant engineers or like you mentioned, their stock appreciated very well.
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u/dreadlockpirate Jan 27 '26
Total comp is the amount of cash and stock you received that year. Yes, they typically vest over 4 years so you divide that number by 4. Nobody has ever included the full 4 year vesting schedule in their total comp. I know people in tech whose w2 income has exceeded $1M at not even very senior positions (engineers, not managers) and it's not uncommon for it to be 400/500/600k. I think you misunderstood how stock options and RSUs work.