Take the example of the civil engineer you provided. The bridge he/she designs doesn't scale -- it supports a constant flow of people and goods and services thr

Take the example of the civil engineer you provided. The bridge he/she designs doesn't scale -- it supports a constant flow of people and goods and services through it. Doesn't that make it less valuable than the example engineer's software, which can scale up (and FAANG level software is usually processing/exchanging similar if not greater value)? Also a civil engineer's job is less valuable if less people are commuting, there's less of a need for bridges. Also if studies show that SWE's are more productive working from home (don't have any data on this, just a guess), then SWE salary should have that factored in, since they're providing more value. Just playing devil's advocate about your example, I don't have an opinion yet on your projection. I think wages will largely also depend on the continued growth of the software sector and inflation.