3-5X? What country is this? Typically in Silicon Valley there's a rapid rise in the first 5-7 years and then it gets pretty flat (say, 1.1X or 1.2X not 2-3X) unless you're actually taking on a bigger role (and thus getting paid for those responsibilities rather than "experience" per se).

When you look at it from a company cost perspective, the ratios get even smaller. The fixed costs (desk, power, healthcare, etc) are pretty much the same no matter the experience level of the engineer.

At Microsoft, annual compensation for entry level hire is around 130k (W2 box #2) where as for the principal engineer that figure is atleast 350k

So less than 3x compared to entry level, probably less than 2x compared to someone with 5-7 years.

Principal isn't a level most people reach, and has better salary.

Jesus. When I started in '06, my total comp was 82k. My last year, 2010, my total comp was $115k. I managed to be both too late and too early to that party.

Principal is not normal.

Exactly. I actually left software development after about 15 years. I think my salary progression was pretty typical:

First 5 years = ridiculous year over year growth, including getting raises without having to change jobs!

Next 5 years = slow growth, generally have to change jobs in order to get a raise.

Next 5 years = flatline, cost of living increases only, IF THAT.

I don't know any other professional field that plateaus this quickly.

Yes and yes.

If I compare myself against when I just started, I'm easily 10x more valuable now (in some cases 100x). And I would still choose my current self over 5 copies of myself at 5-7 years of experience.

Maybe if you have a simple problem, like a CRUD application or a simple website, it wouldn't matter much. But for harder problems there is no contest.

This. Most development is CRUD and is trivial. Write a DSS and/or automation system that is bulletproof and saves millions and it's significantly more difficult. The difference between using something like Biztalk and writing something like Biztalk is orders of magnitude more difficult.

If you are using someone else's framework for the majority of what your application does, that's not really software development. I know many people won't like hearing that.

Wait a minute, are those multipliers real?