Obviously to fit my point into what amounts to a tweet I’ve hand-waved a bit, and your less hand-wavy napkin math sounds more or less plausible. 5 standard deviations sounds like a lot for anything that can be called “jobs” plural: being an Olympic gold-medalist is a “job” in some sense but I think the idea of job has started to break down a bit there. Ditto Fields-caliber mathematicians, etc.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone seem all that surprised that senior but not world-famous attorneys often bring in 7 figures, but I routinely see people act not just surprised but almost indignant that senior software people sometimes do.
I don’t think we strongly disagree as long as I’m clear that software pay seems to be growing roughly in line with the importance of software to life and commerce. My point was, why should anyone be surprised or even upset by this?
I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone seem all that surprised that senior but not world-famous attorneys often bring in 7 figures, but I routinely see people act not just surprised but almost indignant that senior software people sometimes do.
I don’t think we strongly disagree as long as I’m clear that software pay seems to be growing roughly in line with the importance of software to life and commerce. My point was, why should anyone be surprised or even upset by this?