The only kind of compensation that is correlated to value are sales commissions, which most devs don't make.

A lot of us get deluded from the fact that we're highly skilled labor that takes a ton of training and skill sets most people don't have, while at the moment we make products with zero marginal costs. It's not the latter that's as important as the former.

I bet quite a number of HNers have liked a given workplace, but done the "job boomerang" where they jumped over to a much higher paying (but less desirable to them) job, only to jump back to their preferred place at much MUCH higher pay.

I hate interviewing as much as the next person, but it is the only way to actually get closer to what one is worth.

Trying to just save up for when the AI gets so good all of us will be going to FCs like this story /s

Your high salary isn't "justified" by anything except current market supply and demand.

Which is to some extent, very much the natural case in point: a software developer is no value to me if what I need is a carpenter.

Software development is applied autism. There aren't many people on the spectrum and the ones of us lucky enough to be interested in computers (instead of say model trains) are making out like bandits because there's no one else who could do our jobs.

OP already covered why there's such a high demand for us. When you have a limited supply and unlimited demand wages increase. Or to put it another way: there are no other professions that can make 10 million for their employers in an afternoon by thinking really hard.

[citation needed]

> Software development is applied autism.

[citation needed]

> Or to put it another way: there are no other professions that can make 10 million for their employers in an afternoon by thinking really hard.

The entire finance industry called and wants to have a word. Not that I'm a fan of theirs, but perhaps you should think harder next time before you post.