[Latteland]

Where is the place that mid level software engineers think there are not good career prospects and they'd get paid more? I can only guess it's a place where there aren't many dev jobs. My experience is in the Seattle area and we are begging for people to even apply for jobs. There are 10,000 jobs easily in Seattle. My company would love to grow its dev force 50% and we can only get people by hiring them away from another company (perhaps an obvious comment :-)), and by hiring new college grads.

If your job is working you too hard, with not enough pay, then people here get another job. It seems harder to high people with some experience at my company anyway. New college grads make 120k+ at top companies (we are a startup but not a unicorn, we pay a little more than that).

[blackkat]

Pardon the question: What skills are you looking for that define "mid level software engineer"? I'm a long-time engineer at a single company. I've been more and more tempted to strike out elsewhere as I feel like there is nowhere else for me to move into position/pay wise where I am. I need help to determine how to frame the skill level that I have and/or where to focus on so that I can claim/apply with a certain level of skill.

[therealdrag0]

Title placement is often just a rough estimate based on years of experience. If you've been at a single company for a while, the usual advice is to break your time up into roles/projects on your resume.