This reveals one of the challenges in these comparisons, by the way: total comp can vary dramatically due not only to initial signing bonuses (which can result in a total comp “cliff”) but also due to time-at-level: e.g. if you were just promoted to level n and your peer was at n for four years, your peer’s net cash flow includes four previous n-sized RSU grants, whereas yours is 3x of n-1 grants.

Of course transparency is still good, but it’s easy to misunderstand what causes a comp difference; in the case of the fast-promoted engineer they may appear to earn less per year despite having a steeper career trajectory than a slower peer.