Something that wasn't really covered here but I think might be important is culture. If we were to jump back 6 or 8 years ago, most of us would want to work for

Something that wasn't really covered here but I think might be important is culture. If we were to jump back 6 or 8 years ago, most of us would want to work for google because of their whole "not being evil" schtick, as well as the amazing campus and all the money. But with every little thing that happens, when you realise that Google (like a lot of companies, granted) is in it for the money, one might become a bit less excited. I think a decent amount of good software engineers has a fairly strong ethical code, and would rather not make deals with the devil. Some companies (Google was one of them) seemed to make their deal about making the best services in the long term, and not about making things about money. I remember watching a talk about the history of OpenSolaris. Including the absolutely mythical phrase "Don't make the mistake of anthropomorphising Larry Ellison."(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc#t=2298 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc#t=2298) But after that comment he goes into the very sad details of how OpenSolaris ended up becoming closed source by Oracle. After this , many many very competent engineers left Oracle almost immediately(within 90 days). The talk is worth listening to (it's about 3 minutes after the Ellison jab), and the guy giving the talk gets extremely emotional about it. The power of the social contract with the OSS community was extremely strong. No matter how much money you can give, a lot of people end up following ethical and moral rules. I'd think Corporate culture is about 75% of software engineer's decision of where to work.