This is a big factor. The only place in my hometown that hires for IT related jobs is an international law firm. In that case the lawyers are top dog and you ar

This is a big factor. The only place in my hometown that hires for IT related jobs is an international law firm. In that case the lawyers are top dog and you are just some lowly engineer. Where as at large tech companies you are the company's bread and butter and you usually get treated like it. Like you said in most businesses IT/development staff is just an overhead costs.