The distribution matters. How common are the bad/good/mediocre scenarios? Some just might be mostly bad, with rare exceptions. While other jobs might be mostly good, with rare bad cases, so you might risk this outcome.

The distribution isn’t random though. At some point people need to be honest with themselves about where they’re likely to wind up.

>At some point people need to be honest with themselves about where they’re likely to wind up.

Ah, the social mobility of the american dream.

For example being a software engineer outside the US, working for a local business, selling to local customers. In Latin America, programmers can make about 10 or 20 times less than in the US.

Why does this happen?

Most software ultimately automates menial labor. If the menial labor that's being automated is highly paid, the software engineer is highly paid. If the menial labor is lower paid, the software engineer is lower paid. Adjusting also for the amount of menial labor which is automated.

In a poorer society equivalent menial labor is more poorly paid than in a richer society.

Wages are generally controlled almost entirely by supply/demand. In an area where there are more people interested in doing a job than there is in demand for that job, wages for that occupation will trend towards the lowest possible value. In an area where there is more demand for a certain skillset than exists, wages will trend to the maximum affordable cost for anybody with that skill.

All the other stuff like expertise and value is, counterintuitively, near irrelevant. For instance postdocs are some of the most highly educated and ostensibly highly skilled individuals - and many have taken on hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt to get to where they are, yet they earn about as much as a plumber does, because there's far more supply of postdocs than there are jobs/positions for them.

So putting all the theory into practice. There are usually three possible reasons. Supply is too high = excessively high rates of software training/education. Demand is too low = not many roles for software developers. Or the companies that are hiring aren't making much themselves so the "maximum affordable cost" is relatively low.

Do you own a house? Have something go wrong and get a few quotes from corporate institutions. You'll be seeing insane prices. Some smart tradesmen will look at their call volume and charge more accordingly since more calls means people are settling and paying corporate rates.