[KellyCriterion]

> Before 2000

The salary expectations exploded when the VC/PE-bobos went into the space and started "build-and-sell-high".

Sure there were Billionairs made before tech & internet, but public was not aware of most such transactions.

[galangalalgol]

And that never changed salaries nearly as much in games, embedded, or outside the us. I never worked in any software position adjacent to the online economy, so I never saw any of those wacky salaries.

[KellyCriterion]

> to the online economy, so I n

that term is great, thanks! because: Outside of the "online community", a SWE salary is just a normal salary, all these superhigh salaries only came around the corner when it started to be about "international!" and "global scale!" and "disruption!" (of course LOL) and other things like these.

In the 90s, a "SWE" was just a normal employee doing some IT dev stuf & co, but after DotCom-boom SWE et. al. became the heroes, esp. for scaling and selling companies quickly because they had their MBA-colleagues in mind :-D

[galangalalgol]

Yeah, I work in dsp and embedded typically. If you hit principal or fellow you aren't leaving that much on the table vs anything but a faang, but there is a mid career point where you are making half what you could elsewhere. I don't fully understand the dynamics that resulted in those salaries.

[KellyCriterion]

And to add: Over here in Europe, salaries in gaming & entertainment are amongst the lowest in "software & IT & tech"; sure there are some/few developers who make really good money, but its far off from these crazy salaries in US & co: In EU, it will be very hard to make more than 150.000 EUR before tax in a game studio, unless you are the boss/founder.