Now that these super high salaries are the norm and you can't hire anyone with experience without such salaries, companies end up expecting the world

Now that these super high salaries are the norm and you can't hire anyone with experience without such salaries, companies end up expecting the world from them. Other professions that have similar salary ranges (certain part of finance, law, health, etc) also do. I honestly wish we could perform the labor version of a stock split and double the number of software engineering jobs and the number of qualified foks while halving the salaries. I would gladly do my current job for half of what I'm making now if I could work reduced hours. But no, it's the software industry. The options are generally "unemployment" or "make a bunch of money and work unhealthy hours until you want to die, and then get promoted and work even more" with nothing inbetween. There are exceptions to those norms, but the norms are the norm.