For me it's always been about a sense of fairness, not the nominal amount.

People don't like to willingly leave significant amount of money on the table.

In the end, one of the main reason why we work is for money.

It is not about that, but it is about knowing my value. Am I wrong?

I don't even need to earn $250k like them. If they were giving me $240k I would've been okay. But $180k, come on...

I have family to feed. I am an immigrant with no help from parents. I gotta do what I gotta do.

Knowing your value is actually being the stupidest person in the room. If you are at the top then it is logically impossible to guage your worth.

If you are earning 180k vs. 250k earners who you have nothing to learn from, move on, even if you move to another 180k but with smarter folks.

That's what I'm experiencing now. I have nothing to learn from the $250k earners.

My best advice (in the short term) is to contribute to a huge open source project. At the depths of my boredom I contributed to dotnet, who better to learn from than the people who make your tools? Amazingly bright minds to learn from.

Contribute to React. Contribute to Boost. Contribute to Scala. What are you using, or what do you wish you could to use? Contribute to that.

And how do I get more money? Working for free?

Let me tell you a secret. A friend of mine is the no. 1 maintainer of a very popular OSS. 60k stars. He got paid way way way lesser than me.