[beeffective]

Why doesn't the pay reflect the supply and demand? I consider myself a decent developer with 9 years of industry experience in several domains and my salary is only $88k. It sounds like based on the demand, I should be pulling in a lot more.

[potatolicious]

What part of the industry, and where are you located? The increased demand is not uniform across all sub-fields of programming.

Here in NYC someone who understands modern web backends can easily be into the high $100Ks to low $200Ks.

[ctdonath]

Maybe because we're in it for the work, not the money. $75-100K is enough to provide a comfortable life suitable for supporting that work. Not enough of us hold out for bigger offers to push the line up; pay enough to support coding something interesting 8-10 hours a day and we're happy.

A friend noted "as engineers, we would do this stuff for free - it's just all the ancillary BS we get paid to put up with."

[paulbaumgart]

Where are you located? Geography is still a big factor in hiring decisions, so demand is not evenly distributed. In Silicon Valley, $88k is what good-but-not-great fresh college graduates get paid.

[MatthewPhillips]

The point still stands, unless you work for the handful (or less) of companies that pay FU money to their engineers, you're still paid equivalent of what a Dentist makes, and much less than what a good salesperson makes in a much much smaller city.

I think the answer is that the demand isn't actually very high. Programming is still considered a cost center for most companies, the quality of the product is determined by how much they are willing to spend on salary, not vice versa.

[paulbaumgart]

Judging from how much attention all the good software engineers I know get from recruiters and from conversations I've had with people actively hiring, the demand in SF/Silicon Valley is incredibly high. I have personally taken advantage of this demand through lucrative contracting gigs.

Sure, crappy companies in dying industries might not be able to compete, or might not even realize that they're failing to compete, but why care about them? They don't make the market for people who are actually good at software.

[svachalek]

I think you may be underestimating dentist pay:

http://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/dentist/salary

There are a lot of cities listed with low cost of living and $250k median salaries.

[pekk]

I think it's because (though it's always carefully framed to leave this implicit) the argument here really isn't whether there's a developer shortage. It's whether to do more stuff like H1B which increases supply and decreases wages.

[acchow]

We have no way to gauge your skill. But I'm wondering: why do you think $88k does not reflect supply and demand.

There have been a number of articles pointing out the "myth" of the tech talent shortage. Perhaps the shortage really only exists for "top talent"

[MatthewPhillips]

Because the demand isn't actually high.