As an aside, it seems that the $500K/year jobs have dried up - at least I don't see much of that on the "Who's hiring". Salary ranges seem to be more in the $100K - $200K range.
I'm in FAANG making close to that, and I have been testing the market for a few months. I found less than a handful of companies that could beat my current comp.
The vast majority of companies I've talked to seem to top around 250k even for Staff+ roles.
The author says that EU ain't no Silicon Valley, but 2024 sure ain't no 2022.
I think the ceiling is still there where if you have special hard to find skills (ML and distributed systems at my company) you can still command that salary but if you are just writing crud apps nobody is going to pay you half a mil per year anymore.
I suspect most startups are doing more than crud for the most part. Of course, good on you if you have a great startup idea that just requires a simple crud app!
These compensation packages served the very specific purpose of enticing US-based talent to relocate to the Bay Area. As we increasingly accept remote work for senior talent and look abroad (or not at all) for junior talent, this is not as much of a need anymore. The inflow to the Bay Area always had a built-in expiration given there are only finitely many neighborhoods to gentrify and still no appetite for significant housing growth.
It's also self-inflicted pain: if you keep inflating wages you keep inflating home prices, which makes it even harder to attract people in. Google is doing everything it can to cut costs, closing daycares, tracking who eats, but they have literally acres of empty, brand-new real estate. I suspect another round of layoffs may be coming. And I doubt they'll do the "random selection" again. The smart ones at the fringes started bolting for the doors in December.
