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by tensor 3200 days ago
That's not what the data actually shows:

https://www.glassdoor.ca/Salaries/san-francisco-senior-softw... http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Senior_Software_Engi... https://www.indeed.com/salaries/Senior-Software-Engineer-Sal...

3 comments

So some years ago, a company you'd recognize in node.js land, said at a meeting that they were trying to find a javascript expert. Nagged enroute to a bar afterwards, I explained that I wasn't one. I'd never written a full javascript implementation, only some hack bits and pieces. It had been years since I followed committee discussions. I'd not even seen the latest draft. And that I was mostly using coffeescript these days. They replied... coffeescript is ok, we can train you in javascript.

At which point I realized that they were using "javascript expert" to mean something very, very different, than I was.

Perhaps kcorbitt's "a good senior developer" means something different than glassdoor's "senior software engineer"?

I guess it depends on what your cutoff is for "good". I can say from firsthand experience that senior developers at Facebook or Google are hitting those numbers pretty easily.
The self-reported data averaged over the life of the company, sure.