> The thing with countering averages with anecdotes is that neither really paints a holistic picture of the demand pyramid. Back of napkin calculations say around 4% of US developers work at the FAANGMULAs, meaning that some 29 out 30 dev earnings are somewhere lower in the pay scale.
Not only FAANGABCDEF, but "Staff+, with specialized skills, at FAANGABCDEF, in a small number of specific metro areas". If 1 software engineer can be found who makes $700K for every 29 software engineers at other companies/metros/levels who make $100K, Hacker News Commenters will tell you that "Software engineers make $700K". Important to point out there are a lot of other things in play that make it more complex.
I still think it’s an interesting data point though, which only showing average salaries doesn’t reveal. But yeah, it would be nice to see min/max/median in geography, and just get the more raw data.
Not only FAANGABCDEF, but "Staff+, with specialized skills, at FAANGABCDEF, in a small number of specific metro areas". If 1 software engineer can be found who makes $700K for every 29 software engineers at other companies/metros/levels who make $100K, Hacker News Commenters will tell you that "Software engineers make $700K". Important to point out there are a lot of other things in play that make it more complex.