In a world where remote is an option, there really shouldn't be large differences in salary. In negotiations, the party who can most afford to walk away has the

In a world where remote is an option, there really shouldn't be large differences in salary. In negotiations, the party who can most afford to walk away has the advantage. If there were a real dev shortage, devs would be in that position, but they aren't. SV (and other markets) basically refuse to hire remote (and often refuse to relocate employees). This splits the market up into mini-markets where the slight oversaturation of devs allows the local market to dictate prices (under-saturation would boost salaries even in a small market). This is born out with the fact that those who do work remotely seem to have higher salaries for a given experience level (their market is much bigger and more diverse). The obvious answer is unions. Joint negotiations would yield immediate effects. No large company could survive even a day or two of IT strikes without extreme losses. Unlike other jobs, you can't simply replace your staff because most of a company's software IP is held in the heads of its employees and is far too complex to decypher before the losses occur.