[whiskyant]

That's why I said, unless you were already a senior engineer (L5), which isn't really a viable 3 year plan for most people.

You can live cheaper than 3.5k, sure, but that's a fairly typical amount for a single person living near FAANG office locations, if you consider rent/utilities/food/transportation/clothes/equipment expenses/entertainment.

Btw, 400k is 225k in take home, minus aforementioned living expenses is 183k. Even if you were able to get to L6 within 2 years, that's 600k the last year, 320k take home, 278k minus living expenses.

183+183+278 = 644k so you would basically need to be lucky and have 26% stock appreciation every year, which is a lot higher than the norm.