I agree with you about salary. You can move up in salary and title, and the data here seems to suggest that it won't make a huge difference whether you majored

I agree with you about salary. You can move up in salary and title, and the data here seems to suggest that it won't make a huge difference whether you majored in CS at MIT or San Jose State - you need to go to a proper program, sure, but prestige isn't nearly as big a factor as it is in many other fields. That said, I'm not sure you're responding to my question, which is whether there is a hidden difference in kind rather than in salary. For instance, your background may not matter if you're moving up to what I cynically describe as "mid/senior crud big fixer", and it may be that those jobs pay as well as "mid/senior data scientist" who works in an R&Dish role without looking deadlines or scrum tickets. Even if both earn the same salary, I consider one role to be much more desirable than the other (though I actually do kind of enjoy chasing down bugs sometimes). Does the MIT grad have a better crack at the more interesting, R&Dish job with greater autonomy, less micromanagement, fewer deadlines? It's a question, not a conclusion (I suspect it's true, but I acknowledge that I don't have the data to support it). If so, I wouldn't say background rarely matters - it does matter, but it won't show up in the numbers if all you're looking at is salary.