[nxc18]

All of those places will pay just as much for (as well as hire far more of) enterprise Java/Go/HTML/JS code monkeys There's nothing wrong with that, but picking 5 companies with their hands in damn-near anything is disingenuous.

[chrispickels]

Is your goal to be paid extremely well for doing systems programming relative to other people in the same company? Or to be paid extremely well for doing systems programming?

[sova]

The latter: solid salary for sys

[KyeRussell]

So it's less about getting paid for your work and more about a dick measuring contest with your coworkers.

I think that's your issue.