And senior/staff people at Google don't get 7k either. This is yet again a case of myopic lense where someone can't see beyond their own special little island and does invalid comparisons.

Certainly, that's why I responded. Tech salaries are becoming bimodal (or even "trimodal" [1]), and different types of companies are targeting different segments of the talent market. This skews the perception people have on what is actually a market rate, so it's important to spread awareness...

[1] - https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/software-engineering-sala...

yep. I try to gauge early whether an potential employer wants the best programmer, or cheapest. because they pay wildly different. one gives me a better personal ROI than other. The new trend of shops being coy about telling you a job's pay makes it harder. no point wasting everybody's time