This is in line with my experience (~7 years in industry).
Earlier in my career (who am I kidding, 7 years isn't a long time) I'd find myself in a situation where I was consistently lowballing myself (i.e., stating a number and having it automatically agreed to, oops). I soon learned to state the nuttiest, most absurd number I could think of (and then still have people say yes, damn).
Now I find it challenging to find companies willing to pay my current comp. I've largely stopped interviewing at startups completely because the comp is always disappointing, even assuming wildly optimistic things about equity outcomes.
It seems like my path forward now is either into the merry-go-round of AppGooFaceSoft, which are the only companies playing in my comp range, or taking a severe pay cut to work at a startup.
> " you often start to find that you're interviewing for managerial positions rather an individual contributor technical role"
My impression has been that the vast majority of the industry tops out engineers fairly quickly on the compensation scale, and the only way to keep going is to move into management.
The only places where this doesn't seem to be true are the BigTechCos, where ICs can go pretty darned high.
Earlier in my career (who am I kidding, 7 years isn't a long time) I'd find myself in a situation where I was consistently lowballing myself (i.e., stating a number and having it automatically agreed to, oops). I soon learned to state the nuttiest, most absurd number I could think of (and then still have people say yes, damn).
Now I find it challenging to find companies willing to pay my current comp. I've largely stopped interviewing at startups completely because the comp is always disappointing, even assuming wildly optimistic things about equity outcomes.
It seems like my path forward now is either into the merry-go-round of AppGooFaceSoft, which are the only companies playing in my comp range, or taking a severe pay cut to work at a startup.
> " you often start to find that you're interviewing for managerial positions rather an individual contributor technical role"
My impression has been that the vast majority of the industry tops out engineers fairly quickly on the compensation scale, and the only way to keep going is to move into management.
The only places where this doesn't seem to be true are the BigTechCos, where ICs can go pretty darned high.