That's a weird statement considering I'd have guess the greatest amount of respect and adoration (not necessarily money) (non-software) engineers have gotten in the US would've been during the Space Race and Cold War years.

It was real respect for the trade as well, not some secondhand respect that people who make a lot of money and wield a lot of social influence get.

It was respected in the sense that there was a need then in american manufacturing for engineering. But the compensation was nowhere near other professional class jobs. So really the respect seemed a bit false: to get people into the door pigeonholed so they can’t leave for higher compensation. Then when manufacturing was outsourced after the 1960s, many of these jobs disappeared. Now people in Guanzhou are designing the factories and process controls.

This isn't my experience at all, and I've been in London tech for 8 years now. I'm not entirely sure what "low respect" means here, but anywhere I've worked the company is pretty wary of knarking of their developers because we can just up and find another job basically immediately. We get paid a fair bit too - not sure compared to finance, but not hard to hit the 95th percentile or so.

Glad to hear it’s working out for you. I’ve talked to too many UK devs who feel handcuffed when they get even 50% of the US equivalent, because it’s a pay cut to go elsewhere. But, as you say, it’s all relative.

Can't beat yourself up for not getting a salary commensurate with an entirely different economy and strict visa rules. That's just torturing yourself.

If you work for an American company, then your teammate back in NYC might be a daily reminder.