In the US though, compensation for software developers is very bi-modal. You have the “enterprise shops” that start off around $80K and max out in the mid $100s and the “tech companies” that start out in the mid $100s and end up in the $350K+ range.
Most of the 2.7 million developers in the US are on the “enterprise dev” side. If you have a choice, you want to be on the “tech company” side if you care about your compensation.
For context: because of path dependencies and bad career choices, I spent most of my career from 1996 - 2020 on the “enterprise dev” side and only got into $BigTech by pivoting to cloud consulting (enterprise dev + cloud + a shit ton of yaml/HCL PowerPoint slides and diagrams)
Before anyone “well actually”’s me with numbers they are directionally correct on the enterprise dev side in most major cities.
