I know a lot of companies around here who would gladly pay $150k+ for a truly "great" programmer, if they could only find them. People say this all the time bu

I know a lot of companies around here who would gladly pay $150k+ for a truly "great" programmer, if they could only find them. People say this all the time but $150K is a rare salary for a programmer. You have to work at Google for years to be paid that much as a base salary. If a company is offering $150K but can't hire anyone it usually means the company sucks. I.e. it's an overfunded VC time bomb, a boring telecom/security job or something semi-shady.