Here in Portland, which is a relatively cheap city compared to most tech centers, $100K isn't enough to get the attention of any dev who isn't just out of school, and even those devs will have an easy time getting something better-paying in a year or two once they have some practical experience under their belt.

That's not true. The average salary for a Software Engineer is $101227 per year in United States. Data > personal anecdotes. Many SWEs earn less than that.

Portland might be cheaper than SV, but I think it's still in the top 25% most expensive (just my impression).

So which market then? Because that’s not competitive in DC, Denver, Phoenix, Salt Lake, Minneapolis, Dallas, Austin…

Yeah but like, those are still huge cities

$100k/yr is still enough to provide for a family of four in a huge number of places in the U.S. if you're in a more suburban or rural environment, which is still 9 digits' worth of human beings easily

100k/year is roughly 5-6k/month after tax in most places. You can buy a house for 2.5k/month. Seems like enough for most

Where the hell are you getting 2.5k/mo? The mortgage on my 350k house is 1600!

That seems low for $350k, unless that excludes tax and insurance and a sizable down payment was made.

Agreed, except that you can buy a house for a lot less than 2.5k/month.

If they're offering remote work from anywhere in the country, including areas with low cost of living, for recent college graduates, maybe this makes sense.

For anyone who has been in the industry 5-10 years at successful corporations the max total compensation of under $150K would be taking a massive pay cut.

I think many people are not saving enough for retirement. $100k for a family of 4 in many suburban areas could be tight if sufficiently funding retirement accounts.