> Okay but I'd dispute even that. Well, and you'd be wrong. Here's my anecdote against yours: I'm a hiring manager at a large tech firm, and I see lots of cand

> Okay but I'd dispute even that. Well, and you'd be wrong. Here's my anecdote against yours: I'm a hiring manager at a large tech firm, and I see lots of candidates with CS degrees and even some years of experience, who can't code well at all. Definitely not at a level to make comparable pay to partners at law firms :) > Students are going to CS programs these days for the money Yes, and many of them are not good software engineers at all. > I just saw an HN article about an airline attendant who became a developer You know, there are gifted people everywhere. If someone taught themselves enough programming to make it to "partner at law firm" level compensation range, they are naturally talented and have the right combination of personality traits (which is rare, the specific fact that this person was a flight attendant or hair stylist or whatever is irrelevant). > bar is any higher for a significant number of development jobs than say, for example, an auto mechanic I don't know who you are and what you do or don't know, but for high-paying serious tech jobs this is completely false.