[bdcravens]

My father was a grade school janitor. He labored harder in an hour than I do in a week. Most of my extended family are educators, with the academic requirements, stress, and emotional rollercoaster that goes with it. Any of these folks deserve more than me probably, but I can string letters together to make computers do things, so apparently that's highly valuable.

[sethammons]

As a former high school math teacher in an inner city, I absolutely worked more and longer and harder as a school teacher than I ever have in software development. I also get paid like 4x. And get more usable vacation. I was regularly 60-80 hours a week as a teacher. As a developer, I'm seldom over 40-50 hours.

[theflyinghorse]

And I work a full-time job as well as running a startup on the side which amounts to another near full-time job and a ton of stress, what do I deserve?

Truth is is that I deserve precisely nothing. I get what I get and not because the heavens above postulated thus but because my work had value to someone who was willing to give me money for it.