I used to live outside of Silicon Valley, can confirm that most companies don't pay that much. However, what you didn't say is far more interesting: that it's o

I used to live outside of Silicon Valley, can confirm that most companies don't pay that much. However, what you didn't say is far more interesting: that it's okay that they don't. That part is the real travesty, that someone would look at a salary and say, "They don't deserve that" rather than, "I deserve that too." The fact is that software engineering isn't about writing code. That bit is quite trivial in any engineers day. What's hard, dare I say what you're paid to do, is to solve problems. Process problems, efficiency problems, resiliency problems, security problems - you're made to answer questions, or develop systems that answer questions to some of the hardest problems corporations have - and you'd ask for anything less? Boeing most certainly can afford to pay the price especially when human lives are at stake.