Curious about what path to take to maximize salary. Is it niching down in a specific skill, becoming a principal/staff level or super senior IC designer, taking the manager route, or maybe something else? Anyone have experience in forging their path to high comps? I always see engineers here talking about 300k+ base salaries like it’s normal… but wondering what’s possible through a design career.
People managers are the highest paid.. director ux, VP, etc
Staff and principal is equivalent to manager and often director. Once you get to something like senior director or VP, that’s easily where the most money is.
i’m not that great of a designer and i’ve been making 250k base. 300k is totally normal for designers too.
How did you get there? And how many years of experience?
i just grind the normal way. 12 yoe
You can grind your way to VP or Director, or you can join the right company at the right time. With Meta stock appreciation, my total comp is 670k because I joined at a time when the stock was low. I’m an individual contributor who gets exceeds expectations rating every cycle.
Wow, when did you join and what level?
I joined in 2020 during the pandemic as an IC5. Got some nice refreshers in 2022 when the stock tanked also. If you joined Nvdia 2 years ago, for example, your stock compensation would also increase like 700% lol.
We are over paid
Speak for yourself, I’m building dozens of boxes per day.
Become a people manager ASAP and move out of hands-on design work. The super senior IC path only exists in big tech and a handful of companies. But as a manager you can make good money anywhere and move to other management roles in any number of industries.
I've seen my manager go from lead, manager, senior manager then director in about 5 years. She's really good at communicating and staying close to leadership. Got all that from her time as a MIS and hotel concierge, so you can imagine her personality. Idk how much she makes but maybe you can look up director of UX at Fang