Here is exactly how much I made at Google in a strategy role and why I chose to leave

• Jerry Lee is a former strategy and operations manager at Google.
• He left his $198,000 job at Google to build his startup Wonsulting.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Jerry Lee, a former strategy and operations manager at Google. Insider has verified his income with documentation. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

I still remember when I was in kindergarten back in South Korea. I enjoyed playing Starcraft, a popular computer game at that time, and that's when my interest in computers and technology started.

As I grew older, I loved reading tech news articles about how tech is impacting lives. So in college, I set an end goal for myself: work in a strategy role at a tech company.

After working at Google, I felt like I got a mini MBA. I'm grateful for all the lessons that my managers and my teams taught me, and I still use them to run my startup today.

But certainly, my job at Google was stressful: we worked on a global team and some coworkers were based in Europe and Asia. So we had meetings at 5 or 6 a.m. on Tuesdays and at 11 p.m. every Wednesday. I felt I always had to give 110% every single day because my colleagues were extremely smart and hardworking.

Here's how much I made in each role at Google

Analyst, Trust and safety team
Base salary: $70,000, Bonus target: $10,500 (15% of base salary)
Relocation bonus: $7,500, Equity: 60 restricted stock units

Total compensation: $88,000

I joined Google's trust and safety team. We worked with engineers and sales teams to minimize abuse on the platform. By abuse I mean, for example, hackers who could get into your Google ads account, post random things on your behalf and spend money on your account.

I learned a lot of analytical skills. There was one project I worked on where we detected some suspicious activity on Google Ads, and I helped solve the issue with our engineers and our product managers.

Strategist, Trust and safety team
Base salary: $74,506 ($35.82/hour), Annual bonus: $11,175
Equity: 60 restricted stock units

Total compensation: $85,681

Within eight months I was promoted to a strategist, where I was responsible for strategy, analytics, and operations for global Google Ads financial fraud.

At that point, I felt like I learned a lot, but didn't know if there was much else for me to learn. So I interviewed with different teams within Google. Then, about a year later, I successfully moved to the revenue strategy and operations team.

Strategy and operations manager, Revenue strategy and operations team
Base salary: $100,000, Annual bonus: $18,500
Equity: $30,000

Total compensation: $148,500

This team thinks about how to increase revenue for Google. We worked with the Google sales team, and I helped think about what markets we were going to tackle first, what incentives to set up for the sales team, and so on.

Senior strategy and operations manager, Revenue strategy and operations team
Base salary: $129,000, Annual bonus: $22,500
Equity: $46,500

Total compensation: $198,000

One year later, I was promoted again to senior strategy and operations manager.

I was getting promoted frequently and I wanted to keep the momentum going, but at a certain point, I was told to wait my turn for a promotion — even though I was excelling in my role. That didn't sit well with me so I decided to leave Google.

My experience working in tech was determined by the team, not the company

There's a misconception that a big company has the same, uniform culture across teams. People often imagine Google is all about casually riding bikes around the campus and enjoying free food all day. But in reality, your experience is heavily shaped by the specific team you're on.

My second team was full of former consultants — everyone put in maximum effort every single day and I felt like I had landed in a consulting firm. This culture shift, compared to my first team, made that time at Google a bit more challenging.

In hindsight, I wish I applied to more startups

One thing I would have done differently in my career is apply to startups. I had only applied to Fortune 100 companies, and that was probably a mistake.

Knowing what I know now, I would say cash compensation is good — it'll make you rich — but it won't make you wealthy. I would have lived a very comfortable life working at Google, but if I had joined a startup and it went public (and I had equity in the company) — that's on a different level.

If you work in tech, finance, sales, or marketing and want to share your salary journey, email Aria Yang at ayang@insider.com.