> Be careful to compare like for like. A highly qualified ops person compares to a highly qualified developer, not merely a "skilled" one. For all the difficulty of objectively measuring skill, I would assume that a highly qualified ops person would make substantially more than a merely skilled developer.

I think that I failed to communicate my meaning clearly in that statement, so I will attempt to clarify. What I mean is, that in my experience a highly qualified Ops person will /also/ be a skilled developer, but a highly qualified Developer will /not/ be a skilled Ops person. E.g. based on skill-set alone, highly qualified Ops people bring more skill to the table in union than a highly qualified Developer. Whether that's the skills you value or prioritize as an organization or not is another question entirely.

For the purposes of my salary comparison above I used the same years of experience and skill rating in the calculator for the Site Reliability Engineer and Developer roles. As you say, I would expect a highly qualified Ops person to make more than a "merely skilled" developer. I wasn't really trying to state anything opposite of this.