Part of what is not necessarily recognized on HN is that high paying software engineering positions really do hire competitively. And part of that is often the

Part of what is not necessarily recognized on HN is that high paying software engineering positions really do hire competitively. And part of that is often the BS whiteboarding stuff which almost everyone will need to prepare for explicitly. But regardless it is competitive at the well-compensated positions and things like "culture fit" etc. are also used. They can be very selective and just hire anyone they like. So one may be a genius and an experienced developer, but you may also be competing with someone who is a much younger genius, charismatic and with a well-regarded degree and good at whiteboarding. For me, being a little bit older and not interested in getting an associate's degree in white boarding algorithmic problems or dealing with a lot of stress from office politics, I am not easily able to obtain or maintain a high paying job. But I am able to live somewhere with a low cost of living and work on a contract basis that keeps me going. My goal is to build robots someday so I am taking advantage of a light schedule to learn/work on computer vision.