You're mistaken.

Just for a datapoint, I've never lived in the Bay Area (and haven't worked on-site for a dozen years), and I make a lot more than that as a developer. I am in no way unique. This is in fact what good devs make if we ask for it. Nomatter where we live.

Incidentally, you're right that you generally won't receive an initial offer for that kind of money. You need to negotiate for it. That is sadly another area we devs are not historically good at:

http://www.expatsoftware.com/articles/developers-should-lear...

Do you own your own business? It's definitely possible to earn that much when you run a successful website or app. But I have a really hard time believing developer salaries are $300k+ at companies outside of CA/WA/NY.

The national median is right around $100k.

Developers that earn significantly more than that have significant ownership stakes in the company, highly desirable skill-sets, or notoriety in the field.

At the moment, yes. In the context of my above reply, no.

Personally, I prefer to listen to the person who has tried a thing and declared it possible, rather than the person who has never tried that thing and declared it impossible.

Sadly, this thread (and others like it) fill up quickly with that latter group.

You are absolutely unique. The fact that you have no problem pulling down a salary that's 3 times the median yet don't appreciate that fact suggests that you work in a bubble.

You're typical mid-western Java dev is not going to get a job for $300k. Or anywhere remotely close to it. Those salaries are for very specialized roles and consultants.

Would you be willing to give any details about what you were doing as an employee earning that much outside the Bay Area etc? What sort of skills were you using, what were you hired for, was it remote/contracting etc?

which company (do you work for) and state do you live in?