These compensation amounts reflect what I am seeing in the market. Whenever I see these amounts, like many others, I am somewhat amazed, but then I stop, look at my own history and reflect on the environment that supports paying a Staff engineer $300k a year.
Here is my story, which may or may not shed some light on working in high tech in Silicon Valley. I was part of a couple of successful startups in Portland, OR and was convinced by a venture capitalist to join a software company as VP of Engineering in 1997. I was paid $225,000, given a bonus schedule and a percentage of the proceeds of the sale should one occur. For a while I flew from Portland to SFO and took a cab to Foster City every week. I eventually moved, trading my unique, top floor apartment with a view of a park for a generic stucco box apartment in Burlingame that cost three times as much. The work was brutal and involved lots of lay-offs, restructuring, working with vendors to avoid defaults and the usual joy of dealing with a company in crisis. It was soul crushing, but the company finally sold and I took my bonus and started another software company in Burlingame.
I did various startups, some good, some bad and ended up at Apple at what was called Engineer/Scientist (some number here). I can't remember what the number meant. I was making $145,000 and received 27,000 options priced at $9.00 a share. I bought a really boring townhouse off of Lawrence Expressway for $300,000 that cost $57,000 in 1967. It is jammed into an already dense neighborhood totally devoid of any personality. The very same townhouse just sold for 1.1 million because you can walk to Apple Parc from it.
Living in Silicon Valley, especially as a young engineer making $185,000 means living either in San Francisco and commuting, or living in one the fairly identical communities all along 101 in a fairly identical apartment building or renting a house. Maybe you can find a situation that is more unique, or boost your commute time and live in the periphery. The commute is no fun, because you and everybody else is arriving at your various mega-campus' around 9:00 and leaving around 18:00.
I often felt like I was going insane. I felt like people were piled on top of me. I would go on two-hour bike rides at lunch everyday into the hills to escape. I was making good money but the "nice" houses in Palo Alto or Woodside were extremely expensive. The cost of living was quite high, so even though one might make a lot, you can expend a lot. When I went out to dinner, everyone around me was talking about their startup, IPO, options, explaining how they were going to tell their early investors to "go pound sand", etc.
This is my experience and of course your mileage may vary. You may love the "hustle" the energy and all that entails. I don't know how people manage to raise kids or have a peaceful life there. I am sure it can be done. When I personally think of having to go back to living in Mountain View/Sunnyvale/Santa Clara and commute to the GooglePlex/Apple Parc/Facebook Hacker Way I am overcome by a deep sense of anxiety, dread and nausea.
Once again, this is my experience and I understand and value people who love this environment. Please don't be blinded by these high dollar compensation plans. I promise you there is more to life than making this amount to work in Silicon Valley. Please factor in all of the environmental values when you decide to move to Gilroy with your family to work at Facebook. There is definitely a cost.