[nud]

Am I the only one made uncomfortable by someone asking if 170k is a good salary, and made even more uncomfortable by the people inquiring if that's enough to maintain a decent quality of life? 170k is over 2.5x the median income in Seattle, and people start families and find contentment with far less.

Perhaps a less entitled way of phrasing the question would have been "Is 170k an appropriate salary for a software dev in Seattle?" I think my issue is with the implication that 170k might not be a good salary to maintain high standard of living.

As tech workers with the potential to earn these large sums, we should be aware of our privilege, and cognizant of how the rest of the population lives.

[product50]

This is a tech forum and not reddit. Most folks here are within the tech industry and I have seen threads where people have been discussing $400k salaries like it is no big deal. So I feel this is a fair way to phrase the question given the forum's context.

[stuxnet79]

> Most folks here are within the tech industry and I have seen threads where people have been discussing $400k salaries like it is no big deal.

I would still argue this comprises the minority in HN.

[askafriend]

Why should anyone feel guilty relative to the median income?

The real guilt should be in not being paid what you are worth for too long.

Seeking greener pastures and getting compensated in line with what you're worth should be celebrated!

OP, shoot for 200k+ and I'd suggest going to Facebook. I'm confident their stock will do wonders in the coming years and they have very interesting problems due to scale.

[dang]

It's common (if not strictly accurate) for people to think of HN as a programmers' forum, so the OP probably thought "software dev" could be omitted as already in scope. It is mentioned, after all, in the second sentence of the main text.

To prevent misunderstanding, we've inserted "for a software developer" into the title above.

[nopit]

Yes, you are the only one. He isn't guilty for being valuable enough to warrant such a salary.

[exstudent2]

If people create value for an organization shouldn't they capture some of it for themselves? The less a developer is paid, the more the execs/investors are pocketing. That money goes somewhere.