No one doubts that some developers are paid that much. What they doubt is that that compensation is normal. To me, the argument implicitly seems to be over the definition of what's "normal" rather than the actual existence or non-existence of highly paid developers. Of course highly paid developers exist.

That's really just a distinction without a difference. The point is that for reasonable definitions of normal, this is true. Some people don't believe that. Sure not every engineer takes home that much, but its also not only the top 5 or 10%, its significantly more than that.

What evidence do you have that significantly more than 10% of engineers earn more than $400K?

Are you talking software engineers? Software engineers in the Bay Area? Software engineers in the Bay Area working for a subset of companies?

I suspect the reason this 'debate' exists is that we are not specific enough with our language to make our meanings clear to one another. :)

To me it's difficult to tell whether the commenters here are disagreeing over the objective reality of compensation distributions or the subjective reality of what counts as 'normal'.

>Software engineers in the Bay Area working for a subset of companies?

Yes, to be clear that's what this argument was predicated on. Someone said "A significant percentage of SWEs at FANG style companies take home more than 400K per year" and other people said "I don't believe you.

No one ever said "A significant portion of all swes everywhere make more than 400K." That would indeed be a silly statement.

Specifically, this was the statement that started this thread:

>400k is not unusual for a senior engineer working at big tech for several years in the Bay, Seattle, NYC, or even a city like LA

That statement is objectively true for practically any reasonable definitions of "not unusual".

> What evidence do you have that significantly more than 10% of engineers earn more than $400K?

What evidence do you have to the contrary?

Compensation data isn't typically shared openly. Well-paid engineers have no reason to share their pay figures and create animosity or worse problems.

I have no strong evidence to the contrary.

I'm trying to learn the truth. The previous commenter made claims about the distribution of comp. No doubt they had reasons for believing that claim. I want to know their reasons so I can update my own beliefs.

I have made no claims so I don't understand why you are asking me for the answer. I'm trying to learn the answer! :)

Beyond "I work at one", there's not much I'm willing to share, but suffice to say that when the majority of the people who work at these companies are saying something, perhaps they have reason to believe it is true.

There are also past threads on reddit and hacker news which include anecdata that points to such compensation being reasonably common, but again that requires believing anonymous internet people.

You're probably right, it's just my first time encountering this.