Part of me thinks that if engineering was offering better careers, we would have flying cars now. But I also see it as a market and if engineers aren’t paid that much, it is probably because there isn’t a supply shortage. For software developers, there is a supply shortage (as every company is becoming a software company) and it translates into higher wages.

> I was thinking something along those lines, we've had an entire generation of smart people go into finance and create financial innovation that led to 2008 (amongst other, potentially positive, things).

Both seem a little low; I'd expect a mid-level in London to be >£75k (~$100k). Less sure on the US salary; maybe >$155k? Neither include equity, but I imagine they scale pretty similarly.

So a London dev at Google is looking at a loss of $70k per year compared to their SV colleague.

London isn't cheap. It may not be NYC or Bay Area levels, but you can't really escape it by commuting in. You're going to be competing with everybody else trying to do that and knocking £5-6k off your post-tax income, so I don't think it really comes out as "cheaper" to try that. I was estimating needing ~£1000 per month as basic living costs (rent + public transport, but not food) in shared accommodation when I was looking to move there (in the end I didn't, but not because of anything I've said here).

Edit: Fix bad maths in comparison

Traditional engineer roles pay far less, think £40k in London.