[staycoolboy]

Yes, it is. And the high salaries at netflix are for top performers, not someone who did a full stack, once.

Like you said, 99% of software developers are NOT the top 1%. ;-)

EDIT: I removed some snark after reading Zenbit_UX's reply.

[Zenbit_UX]

In response to your assertion that 99% of devs think they are in the top 1%, I'm not sure if that's true...

Here's my case:

Devs who work in a team with others are constantly exposed to the skills, cleverness and ingenuity of their colleagues. Most interns and juniors look at sys architects and senior devs with awe, not down on them.

Obviously we're all exposed to incompetent dev's at similar rates, but I feel like when you become the best dev in a company most realize they're unlikely to learn much more and should consider moving on, if not out of à desired to learn more, than likely out of frustration.

The wildcards are the "1 man shows", a dev in a department of 1. These people are often either incredibly brilliant and don't need any help or so stunted in their development and inflated I'm ego that they genuinely do believe they're the 1%.

As a 1 man show dev myself, I often have to remind myself I have no baseline reference for how good I am - despite my talents being sufficient for my employer to not need to hire others. To combat this, I just have to read HN and get a frame of reference for what others in the industry are accomplishing. It's quite humbling.

[staycoolboy]

Good point, I edited my post. Thanks.