Went through the staff SWE loop at Stripe earlier this year. Will share what I know about comp at the upper IC levels because the data is thin and what exists is usually conflated with senior.
First: Stripe's leveling. They have roughly: L3 (new grad), L4 (mid), L5 (senior), and then Staff. Above staff is Distinguished Engineer, which is extremely rare. They don't use the same labels publicly but that's the internal shape. PM mapping is separate.
My offer (Staff SWE, remote, Q1 2026): Base: $285k Equity: $2.4M over 4 years Signing: $100k No bonus
Annualized in year 1: ~$885k TC on paper. Of that, $600k is private stock, which is the uncomfortable asterisk on everything.
How they structure staff equity specifically: At staff and above the equity grants are larger obviously but the refresh conversation is more real. They told me explicitly that staff engineers are expected to get annual refreshes "in the $300-500k range" based on performance, but that's verbal and not in writing. I pushed to get a written note added to the offer letter but they wouldn't do it. Take that for what it is.
Negotiation at this level: They moved. Base went from $265k to $285k after I came back with a competing offer from a public company. Signing moved from $75k to $100k. Equity they held at $2.4M total, but they moved up the grant vest date by 3 weeks (meaningless honestly). The public comp bar matters a lot here. They track it.
What I decided: I took it. The role has more scope than what I was doing before and I genuinely believe in the IPO timeline. But if I had a competing public-co staff offer above $1M total cash+vested I probably would have gone there. Private stock is a bet, not comp.