> If you remain 'senior software engineer' your salary will be constrained by the market range for that position.
The salary range is somewhere from $100k to $600k in the US depending on the company. So if you hit the cap at your current company just move to one that pays more. If you've hit that limit at a top tier company then you can start moving to higher IC roles such as Staff.
"you start moving to higher IC roles such as Staff"
QED.
I don't understand the nitpicking. It is factually impossible to get 20-30% salary increase forever if you move every 2-3 years while remaining at the same level. You'll get to the top end fairly quickly.
The person I replied to who said this has happened to them has only been in the industry 12 years. So, yes, they started as junior, then eng, now senior engineer, they moved maybe 3-4 times. But now if they stay at "senior software engineer" level then things will taper off.
Netflix is indeed an outlier and has always paid higher than the rest of the market since it's such a shitty toxic place to work and in a terrible location to boot.
Even they aren't hiring someone looking at L5 at one of the other big companies at 600k. They'll be much higher than the other companies though.
/All/ the current and former Netflix engineers I've talked to talked glowingly about working Netflix. I'm supposing there's a lot of self-selection. And they've recently started hiring remote.
The salary range is somewhere from $100k to $600k in the US depending on the company. So if you hit the cap at your current company just move to one that pays more. If you've hit that limit at a top tier company then you can start moving to higher IC roles such as Staff.