In San Francisco, softare developers earn at the median $117,700 a year. Keep in mind, that qualifies for subsidized housing for a a family of 4 in San Francis

In San Francisco, softare developers earn at the median $117,700 a year. Keep in mind, that qualifies for subsidized housing for a a family of 4 in San Francisco. This salary is a bit higher than the median for dental hygienists, and considerably lower than for registered nurses. I'm not complaining about that, those are important jobs that should be well compensated, but we should acknowledge that software developers aren't paid outrageously compared to other knowledge based fields. The median for lawyers and physicians is, of course much higher. There's a higher potential upside to software development, but it is a lottery, and most don't end up making a huge amount of money. Senior dev positions at top tech companies do pay very well, over twice the median salary, but these salaries aren't remarkable compared to top professionals in other fields. The field comes with considerable age related issues, and the work environment (open offices, scrum) leave much to be desired. Honestly, I think the reason for the "shortage" is that people who have the choice (i.e., aren't bound by their visa to work in software) are rationally choosing to work in other fields. http://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/software-developer/salary http://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/software-developer... You can look around the site, it provides a roundup of BLS data by region.