also most cs people who are smart tend to think they are average because they are surrounded by other very smart people. I hate that mindset of "oh if you work hard, you too can get a FAANG job making 400k"

I think I'm below average, and then I interview CS grads and "7 years experience in X" on the resume who struggle to write a for-loop, or even write a single line of code at all... I feel like I'm constantly being gaslit.

This has been resonating with me recently: https://blog.codinghorror.com/why-cant-programmers-program/

It really depends where in the USA. This Harvard project tracks intergenerational mobility. I make more annually than both my parents made combined for their three peak years. https://opportunityinsights.org/ I come from one of the highly mobile counties.

The privilege I am talking about is related to the chances of access to $200k jobs.

Just being born and raised in the US means that you don't have to worry about visa issues, for example. And when I was in the US, I only managed to get my H1B through a quota-exempt employer, meaning I couldn't move around for better offers. I also lost count of how many times I received the "you have very good qualifications but unfortunately we can not sponsor visas" email.