[gozur88]

I know people who are making mid six figures working for Google-tier companies. But I don't think there are very many of those kinds of people - hundreds, maybe. And these are people with highly specialized skillsets in addition to their software development skills - pattern recognition, for instance. You're not going to get a job like that because you know Python really well.

Asking a software developer "Why aren't you making $400k?" is a lot like asking a random mid-level manager why he isn't the CEO of a Fortune 100 company.

[lj3]

> I know people who are making mid six figures working for Google-tier companies. But I don't think there are very many of those kinds of people - hundreds, maybe.

This is the thing that annoys me the most about these conversations. Some people take a few outliers and use them as proof that the rest of the bell curve is [ bad at negotiating | incompetent | lazy ]. Drives me nuts. I can name several multimillionaire business owners. Nobody's going around saying your bootstrapped one man startup should be raking in multiple millions of dollars a year or there's something wrong with you.

[ryandrake]

These "HN salary" threads would be a lot less annoying if those guys would just admit "Yea, $300K or $400K is super rare, for outlier folks out outlier companies who have outlier skills," rather than the usual "Lots of people make that! Just negotiate better, bro!!" bluster.