Unless you're Norvig or Dijkstra.
https://www.quora.com/What-would-a-CTO-compensation-equity-b...
Per CIO magazine (2015), CTOs make up to $220K, directors up to $174K:
http://www.cio.com/article/2878056/salary/tech-salary-guide-...
Pretty much all surveys show similar ranges. Do they all "skew heavily downwards"?
New grads at Google get paid around $170k a year. https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-salary-for-graduates-start...
As an example, I'm in the Boston area and ~2 rungs away from a "director" type title, working at a company known to not pay top dollar and without things like stock. It wouldn't take much stock for me to enter into the range that's being discussed here, albeit likely the lower side of it. OTOH none of the people I talk about this stuff with are remotely near the top end of that range when you take stock options out of the picture.
Stock in startups and options in general are a gamble, of course.
They're still plenty valuable, as opposed to startup options which I consider worthless, but my point was that IMO this is one of the sources of all of these debates as to how much people make. Some people will count them and others won't
Just checked glassdoor, and a senior software engineer makes ~114k so that gives you a pretty good idea of their compensation structure...average.
Not to call you a liar or anything, but I get emails from wayfair recruiters all the time and my understanding of their compensation has led me not to respond but I'd love to be wrong.
