see, this isn't my impression. do you have data? my impression is that $150K is the cap for us regular folks and world-class programmers can make in the low

see, this isn't my impression. do you have data? my impression is that $150K is the cap for us regular folks and world-class programmers can make in the low $200K range... if they are willing to live in one of the highest cost of living areas around. I mean, unless you are like the other person who was talking to me and are counting managers and business people who also have programming skills. But I count those as managers or business people, because they're getting paid as managers or business people for doing manager or business person jobs. My impression is that $300K is pretty middle of the road for doctors, even in lower cost of living areas. For lawyers, my impression was that the bottom half got shit, like less than we do, but the sky is the limit for the top half. My impression is that programmers were sort of the opposite of lawyers, in that our pay bands really are pretty narrow... there isn't even a doubling between the best and the average.