> There are also many junior developers outside of big cities who have salaries more in line with the $60K range you listed. My first job as a SWE was for a sm

> There are also many junior developers outside of big cities who have salaries more in line with the $60K range you listed. My first job as a SWE was for a small startup in NJ (just outside of NY) for ~$50k/year. This was not even an area with a low cost of living. The unfortunate truth is an employer will pay you the minimum they think you think you're worth if, and only if, that's above what they think you're worth. Within 6 months I told my boss I wanted a performance review and I got a 50% raise (to ~80k) because my performance well exceeded the perceived performance at my original hiring. Now that I'm more "senior", something else that I've realized is that hiring an engineer who has been around the block and has a wide breath of knowledge is a much larger force multiplier than hiring 20 engineers and having them scramble. When I look for my next gig some time in the future I'm not going to be pitching myself as solving just their technical challenges anymore. The business case will be "Not only have I solved the problems you're having currently, I've also failed at solving them. I know all the footguns of team leadership and technical stacks. If you want to spend your money efficiently and converge on a solution to your business and organizational problems I can help you get there... for a modest fee" That is how you make a business person think you're worth your salt because, despite it not being true, "anyone can code" is a common sentiment among that crowd.