anyway, the median figure doesn't tell you a whole lot by itself. the median rent in the US for is ~$950 for a 1BR or ~$1250 for a 3BR (suitable for a family with 2-3 children). if you make the median salary, you are probably taking home $6000-6500 a month depending on tax situation. having ~$5000 left over after paying rent sounds more than just "comfortable" to me.
of course, we don't know exactly how well local rents are correlated with dev pay. maybe to be more than "comfortable" you need to pay for private school or pay rent in the best school district. but it would be much more useful to calculate the ratio of rent or home price to pay for each dev and then take the median of that.
That's what I see. As the OP I can say that my wages aren't through the roof, and I don't think they ever will be. I'm a developer and under 100K. I'm not sure anyone I know in this industry has a "through the roof" salary. I don't know anyone at Google. Given how hard I work for the money I do make, I'm expecting to unionize or go solo with my own thing, before my salary somehow goes through the roof. Either of those are more likely.
I dunno. I've never worked a FAANG, but wage increases have been great for every new job. Maybe my US perspective is showing? Maybe move to a hotter market?
I'm in the US, but I won't be moving to a hotter market during the pandemic for sure. If your personal wages are "through the roof", good job, as I'm always for general upward pressure on wages. But the original statement was that dev wages were through the roof. Moving to get them is a new, originally unspecified condition that the statistics don't bear out.
To revise your original statement, "dev wages can be through the roof, if you live in one of a few hot markets that exist globally at least". To me that's like saying, "need more money? Just become the CEO". :)
You may be right about that. I don't interview often. I despise switching jobs because of the gamut of exams and tests they put you through. I've had 2-3 hour exams before. Sometimes coding, sometimes pure psych exams. It completely pushes me away from seeking new jobs. Thanks for mentioning it because sometimes people, including myself, lose the script.
