You were at the lower end of the TC scale.

When I started as a SWE my TC was around $150K and that was in the early 2010s.

And the Levels numbers line up with new grad salary bands from back in 2019-20 as well.

Of course there is also a regional factor, but regional mobility has always been high at target programs (eg. It doesn't matter if you live in Seattle, San Francisco, or NYC but everyone will know UT Austin or Purdue).