This is pretty specific to the bay area market (should apply as well to Seattle and New York, but I'm not familiar enough with the hiring markets in other areas to comment). But I think for the average engineer getting a job at FAANG/equivalent is not very hard if you're willing to prepare for the interviews.
If the average engineer could get a job at FAANG then they presumably would since their total comp would go up 2x. In my experience most engineers can't get one of those jobs despite trying. So they circle around non-tech companies and startups for lower compensations. I've observed this both in the Bay Area and New York. People who are in the FAANG bubble don't notice this in my experience (or the difficulty of FAANG interviews for many engineers) as they don't interact with that part of the engineer population.
> If the average engineer could get a job at FAANG then they presumably would since their total comp would go up 2x.
A lot of them don't actually know that.
Every time someone posts one of those developer salary articles here, from levels.fyi or similar sites, there a long line of naysayers who just can't believe the numbers are real -- but they are real.
Which means to hire you a company doesn't need to compete with FAANG on salary. This doesn't refute my original point that startups don't really need to compete with FAANG salaries for talent.
> But I think for the average engineer getting a job at FAANG/equivalent is not very hard if you're willing to prepare for the interviews.
I agree that getting a job there is not very hard. Getting a senior role (which is what you originally mentioned) is. Anyone who is more than a few years out of school either needs to be really good or accept taking a significant step backwards in career progression (and probably a lowballed comp package).
Being a senior at FB/Google/Apple is more equivalent to staff at Amazon and principal almost everywhere else to my understanding.
FWIW, before I joined my company (a FAANG), I was an engineering manager/tech lead hybrid. I ended up as a high mid-level in pay band, but being paid at just below the average of the next band up from numbers I've seen around, and currently grew it to more than most at the senior level. I may have taken two steps back on the career ladder, but I've almost tripled my compensation (in large part due to stock performance) from my startup job 3 years ago (which was already pretty high for the market for my background), and I have even more freedom in most aspects with what I get to work on & a very strong management team that supports me.
