That mirrors my experience in mainframes. Out of college I was writing HLASM for zOS systems making roughly 65k in Houston. Definitely not bad for right out of

That mirrors my experience in mainframes. Out of college I was writing HLASM for zOS systems making roughly 65k in Houston. Definitely not bad for right out of college from a non-prestigious state school, and I was happy to have work. However, it seemed the upper bound on what I could earn there after climbing the entire ladder was 100k. I decided to move to NYC and was making 100k immediately as a Jr RoR developer at a lean startup that was paying probably 10-15% below market. It makes little to no sense for anyone with other options to take these incredibly low paying jobs relative to what they could be earning, doing what I would argue is far easier development work. It continues to baffle me that these major organizations claim a shortage of mainframe developers, especially as all the senior ones are retiring, yet their pay scale looks comparable to what department managers made when I worked at Circuit City.