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A comment on The richer you are, the more likely you’ll social distance, study finds. Parent comment

Re:The richer you are, the more likely you’ll social distanc... by ska on Thursday January 14, 2021 @06:06PM (#25784243)
levels.fyi is not really a good representation of income for even the Bay area, let alone the industry as a whole.

I don't know why people get confused by this; most people working SWE in the bay area will never see a vaunted Levels.fyi equivalent salary (although most of them will exceed national averages for software).

Basing your understanding of software salaries across the industry on levels.fyi is a bit like basing an understanding of national lawyer salaries on a sampling from top NYC corporate law firms.

(NB there is some sprinkling of other useful salary info on levels.fyi, but people focus on the FAANG and similar companies, and the data is much better there)

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Re:The richer you are, the more likely you’ll social distanc... by JMTQp8lwXL on Thursday January 14, 2021 @09:01PM (#25786013)
People conflate the fact with simply desiring that sort of salary; pointing to Levels provides the justification for demanding top-of-market wages. It's not that we deny the existence of lower-paid SWE's, we just place less emphasis on them when evaluating our financial ambitions in the context of our careers. (If I'll be working 40+ hours regardless of company, might as well maximize wages).
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