I have just over 6 years in the industry and in my current job, my initial total comp was $500+k start. That was 190k salary, 60k signing, $300k stock with a 4-year vesting schedule, 25/25/25/25. My actual take home per year is constantly growing and is well in excess of $300k every year I've been with the company.
So if I understand your point, I agree that the total comp numbers are a bit weird considering how the compensation is structured and a lot of refresh grants do not ever equal your initial grant, but the ability to bring home over $300k, $400k, $500k is not that difficult if you work at Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Netflix, etc.
The key to this is to change companies every so often and in doing so, seek higher positions (promote in transition). These 2 things combined easily push your salary up.
That said, I'm at a point in my compensation that I don't really care about extra money (it's nice, don't get me wrong, but outside of spending some additional money on my hobby's, it mostly will just get saved) and this is really empowering because now I am looking for positions that I feel will be rewarding in terms of the project instead of just looking to grow my compensation further.
So if I understand your point, I agree that the total comp numbers are a bit weird considering how the compensation is structured and a lot of refresh grants do not ever equal your initial grant, but the ability to bring home over $300k, $400k, $500k is not that difficult if you work at Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Netflix, etc.
The key to this is to change companies every so often and in doing so, seek higher positions (promote in transition). These 2 things combined easily push your salary up.
That said, I'm at a point in my compensation that I don't really care about extra money (it's nice, don't get me wrong, but outside of spending some additional money on my hobby's, it mostly will just get saved) and this is really empowering because now I am looking for positions that I feel will be rewarding in terms of the project instead of just looking to grow my compensation further.