> For example, a Staff Engineer at an avg startup might get $250k base salary, in a HCOL area and maybe a 10-20% bonus.
I think you are taking it in the wrong way. A startup has lower mean income but can have a much higher return in the future. Most startups are also cash strained, so you won't get as much cash for your income. I'd suggest you look into the expected return of your startup instead, and the take into at least the following situations:
- Your peers. Do you get to build lasting relationship with truly amazing peers? With such peers, you won't regret it even if your startup fails as you will have great experience, let alone your career will likely take off in the near future.
- The problem space. Does the problem you solve inspire you?
- The potential of your startup. You get to to evaluate the potential continuously, as the situation of a startup changes constantly. The good news is that a startup is usually quite transparent. You get to know how your company performs easily and how the founders lead too.
- Know yourself. How much risk can you take? How optimistic are you? And etc
- Your expected income. Take your equity into consideration, but multiply the value with a probability of success in a given time frame.
For example, I've never been a big risk taker, but I've made peace with it. Instead, I picked the top (or I thought so) late-stage startups in a category that I like, and I picked the startups that built the products that I used daily. Also, I focus on the startups that have potential scales to build my technical and product chops, as I'm interested in build general abstractions and systems, and am not patient or excited to deal with nitty-gritty details of a customer-facing product. I didn't become filthy rich of course, but my life has been exceedingly comfortable so far with me almost always focusing on building the things I like.