[trowawee]

Even if you throw out SF salaries as a wild outlier, this isn't actually that ridiculous. An average quality mid-career dev (5-10 years exp.) in a second tier market like Chicago/Denver/Austin/Boston can pretty easily make 170-200 in cash. "[A]ll up" is the key here tho; there's a big non-salary component in the US that doesn't exist in Europe. Tack on health insurance and the total cost to the company will easily blow past 250 right there. Plus, you're probably giving them some equity and a yearly bonus.

I'll be honest, it does sometimes blow my mind to see how low salaries are over there when I look at job postings and Who's Hiring and the like. I'm jealous of a lot of things Europeans take for granted, but it's wild to me to see senior positions in major European capitals paying the amount that I made two years out of a bootcamp.

[MrFoof]

Thing is, even in those 2nd tier markets, you're still looking more towards the top. I say this as someone having spreadsheets "I shouldn't have" from folks towards the top of acquisitions into larger companies that do pay well. Companies you've at least heard of, but certainly aren't disrupting a market. No, they're not the ones at the top of your list, but a fair number you'd consider respectable.

There's a lot of companies paying 2/3rds of that cash.

Then there's the bad ones, that are still trying to pay half. Seriously. They're not places you even realize exist, and if you went in for an interview you'd instantly sense you're not where you want to be. Places where you watch managers basically bully interviewees to look for immediate subservience, because they want to ensure they'll "yessir" without hesitation. These places absolutely exist. In all of those markets. I've seen quite a number of them.

-- -----

I know, this isn't what we all try to aspire to here, but I say this as someone with far too much experience with Boston (very specifically), Denver and Austin over the past 20+ years. I've had the "good but not amazing" and many "bad" companies as clients of mine. I've talked to their staff. I've done my damnedest to ensure the good eggs know where they stand in the market, and help them move on if they wanted to.

HN very much looks at 75th percentile on up. But once you go down the ladder in the compensation offered, you'll encounter a ton of people where $170-200K salary or salary+bonus would be a 20-30% bump in their comp in those markets. Then you get to the bad places, where they're legit making half and feel thankful for it.