You'll see salaries of around $70-110k in very expensive metros like the Bay, Portland, Dallas, Austin, etc.
Salaries just haven't kept up in the EE space.
They'll probably have a laugh while they're out boating.
I think there might be a bimodal distribution within EE salaries where either you work at an Nvidia/Google/Apple/AMD/TI type company which pays competitively and others which pay subpar wages.
Maybe this is heavily dependent on the subset of EE as well (eg. I'd assume the profit margins for a fabless GPU company like Nvidia are much higher than a company building/desigining ASICs for Telcom usecases like KLA).
That said, you seem to be from North Texas/DFW and EE wages and cost of living seem much more managable compared to those offered in the Bay Area and Portland.
Median home price in Richardson: $478K
Median home price in Garland: $301k
Median home price in Sherman: $308k
Median home price in The Colony: $411k
Median home price in Plano: $520k
Which places are you more likely to be able to own your home with ~$100k/yr income?
I'm just pointing out that EE salaries within the US are depressed due to the (relatively) low wages within DFW (which by DFW levels are competitive).
At the end of the day, you guys are definetly being underpaid compared to SWEs as well as certain specialities of EE (take a look at Nvidia's mid-level TC in the Bay verus TI's in DFW).
DFW has always been a major EE hub in the US, but SV and Portland are similarly sized EE industry hubs and their wages have been depressed.
Since DFW represents around 30-40% of the EE industry within the US, it's a major portion but plenty of industry share is still stuck in higher CoL areas, which incentivizes talent to either switch to SWE or outsource jobs to SK, Taiwan, PRC, India, and Israel where such salaries are more competitive
The pecking order was established in the parking lot. The execs drove BMWs and Teslas, the tenants varied. We were in a special lot.
The worker bees in the fabs drove older Hyundais and Nissans. Except for the trades - fabs require a lot of plumbing and electrical contractors, and those guys were all union, all minting overtime, and all driving fancy pickup trucks.