There's a big difference between being self-taught and going to school, doing well, and being self-taught. I'd suspect most people getting high-paying Jr. Dev

There's a big difference between being self-taught and going to school, doing well, and being self-taught. I'd suspect most people getting high-paying Jr. Dev jobs check all or all but one of these boxes; Started programming early, went to a good school, contributed to open source, quick learners, got good grades. Those are the types of people who tend to get Jr. dev positions with FAANGs. Take a look at this post on HN from ~7 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27424195 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27424195 The blogger here was an intern at Repl.it, but if you look at what they created, their overall output on github and their blog, it's impressive. As a dev with 10 years of experience, I wouldn't be able to do a lot of what he did; I'd posit he's just a more accomplished and better dev than me, and that's OK! The bottom of the ladder for him is going to look different than it did for me and than it does for you. Don't worry about comparing yourself to other people too much at this point in your career (your first job). If you're making enough to pay bills, focus on leveling up your skills and working towards being a better dev, and when you get to a point where you think your comp should be much higher, ask for it (another offer in hand doesn't hurt either)