A smart, ambitious developer will make an order of magnitude more than a smart, ambitious tradesperson over their lifetime.
Work at Google for 10 years and you'll have plenty of money to buy any property you want.
It's not like this is something we have to debate. The average developer easily makes more than the average plumber, with a lot more potential for upside. [1] [2]
The problem with those statistics is that they don't account for location. Software developers may indeed make more salary than the average plumber, but to do so they're mostly required to live in a tech hub, with a high cost of living. I would hypothesize that to maintain a comparable standard of living (i.e. housing, food, etc) to plumbers their average disposable income would actually be lower.
The median home value in Palo Alto is $2.5M per Zillow; in neighboring Menlo Park with comparable schools it's $2M. If you cross I-280 for larger lot sizes (and generally, though not always, more house square footage) you'll see the median home value in Portola Valley is $3.8M. If you don't like those figures, you can look at Trulia's, which says the median sales price for Palo Alto is $2.5M and the mean listing price is $3M.
Note these are generally not luxurious properties at those prices. Many are small postwar ranchers or Eichlers (beautiful but a pain to update) that have not been renovated in decades. Some houses have negative value because they're teardowns; you'd buy the property for the land.
After taking into account housing costs and California's aggressively progressive tax regime, you may find that $250K salary does not go as far as you like. You may make 2x-3x as much--but your cost for comparable housing may be 10x-15x as high and your tax burden will be more oppressive as well.
Yes, home prices are insane but it's not going to wipe out all your gains. I worked a programmer in NYC and could still easily save 50% of my after-tax income.
Not to mention that as a programmer you have the option of working remotely (for a healthy 6-figure salary) for whatever low-cost place you like.
Im sure you could save 50% of your after tax income, but I'm incredibly skeptical that you could do so while maintaining the same standard of living as the average plumber.
Regarding programmers doing remote work they are the exception, and probably account for 1-5% of all developers I would guess. Regardless, they are definitely not representative of the average developer - which is what we were discussing.
You're using industry wide figures. Making $200k in SFO isn't very meaningful. And to achieve top outcomes in IT, you need to live in SFO, BOston or NYC.
You can build a $5M plumbing/electrical/etc business in any location and live a much better quality of life.
> You can build a $5M plumbing/electrical/etc business in any location and live a much better quality of life.
If the average outcome for plumbers is owning $5M businesses, it's amazing how that doesn't show up in any statistics I've seen.
Both of my parents work in the trades. People on Hacker News glamorize it far too much. It's much more frequently a case of intermittent employment and low wages—even when you do own your own business (as both of them have at various times).