It's normally considered a bad salary in comparison to what you could be making. I won't speak for the poster but I left a ~$1m / year TC job ($300k base the rest RSUs) to join a startup. I have a good salary compared to the population at large but it's a fraction of what I could be making on the hope that my equity turns into something meaningful that makes up for it.
The easiest way is to move to the SF area. However, you'll end up spending most of the after-tax pay on housing, food, etc. For example, rent on a 1 bedroom apartment in the suburbs is going to be $30-60K per year:
If you live in the US and work as a software engineer at a top tech company it’s very straightforward to make more than 200k. Otherwise, it’s much harder.
