[hunterrrrrr]

> but don't necessarily set that bar for yourself.

When someone is grotesquely underpaid the bar is pretty low. Take median salary for example. In some places merely buying a home and having it appreciate over the course of one singular year is enough to replace an entire median salary (in that same place)

> if you’re lucky

Can you help me understand how you derived being lucky from this equation? Kind of feels like we were maybe eagerly trying to arrive to a false “either this or that” outcome. Can you help me fix my understanding of your argument?

[brailsafe]

> When someone is grotesquely underpaid the bar is pretty low. Take median salary for example. In some places merely buying a home and having it appreciate over the course of one singular year is enough to replace an entire median salary (in that same place)

I don't necessarily agree that the bar is lower because you're paid less, because everyone feels like whatever they're paying you, regardless of whether they felt like they got a deal or not, is in exchange for the work they expect from you. When I hire a bike mechanic that charges less, I'm happy I'm paying less, but I naively still want my bike to work properly, and if they didn't match my expectation, I'm going to be unhappy with the service. Charging less doesn't necessarily change someone's expectation, but having junior in your title might give you more leeway.

> Can you help me understand how you derived being lucky from this equation? Kind of feels like we were maybe eagerly trying to arrive to a false “either this or that” outcome. Can you help me fix my understanding of your argument?

Being lucky, in the context I used it, meant that you've been able to successfully find a path of gradual and measurable or desirable evident skill advancement, perhaps with a few standout projects that prove you have those skills, and that people willing to pay you as a business operator (independent contractor or w/e, someone who has complete latitude to apply their apparent skills for money) will be compelled by (i.e I want you to make me a website because you seem to know your shit for x reason). Those projects aren't an every day thing, and you should try very hard to identify them and succeed at them, holding yourself to a higher standard than normal for your own sake.

For famous programmers, that was Doom, or hacking the PS2 or Jailbreaking the iPhone, or inventing the Masonry layout, or maybe the Boston Globe website, all things they may or may not have done while being just an employee, but that they can obviously point to and be like "I worked at ___ for 5 years and one of the cool projects was this thing where we figured out how to do responsive images before it was feasible for a major newpaper", but otherwise a ton of smaller projects that nobody's heard of. Hire me for something as a contractor and I'll apply my skills in a way that I think will solve your problem well, not the agency I no longer work for.

[hunterrrrrr]

apologies if this comes off as a nitpick but when I read this

> I don't necessarily agree that the bar is lower because you're paid less

And then this

> I naively still want my bike to work properly

It reads like your conclusions are at odds with each other

Anyway I think we can wrap this one up just heading over to levels.fyi and comparing 2021/2022/2023 salaries for positions with 2024 salaries for the same positions.