For the average person, the amount of money Netflix pays its engineers is absolutely life changing. Even if you have to live in the hideously expensive bay area to get it.
Levels.fyi says the average compensation is...450k. But that's for the entire software engineer job ladder, so it's probably skewed upwards somewhat. Still, a median of 250-350k would still be a ton of money.
Even so, I'll point out that this elite sports teams pay more than just 2X-3X more than average ones.
For all the talk of "talent" in this industry, it doesn't work like a talent industry. Where engineers do earn major salaries, it's usually on account of the managerial element and not the engineering one.
Lawyering is a talent industry, for example. Top lawyers in top firms do earn on a scale as disparate as pro athletes. The top lawyers may manage people, but their high salaries are for lawyering. The creative industries work that way, obviously.
They pay top-of-band on an annual re-evaluation basis and offer an all cash <-> all equity choice. So pairing that down to the low end new grad scale at Big N ($150, $180k?), but getting that TC in all cash vs. the $120k base, $30k vested equity combos out there, is really life changing.
I don't think the cash vs stock thing changes the calculus much. You could just sell what stock you get anyway (I have mine at Google set to autosell at vest).
Levels.fyi says the average compensation is...450k. But that's for the entire software engineer job ladder, so it's probably skewed upwards somewhat. Still, a median of 250-350k would still be a ton of money.