It's like buying milk. I couldn't tell you exactly how much I could buy a gallon of milk for right now (without looking it up). But I could tell you that it is for around five or six dollars. I could also tell you that organic milk is a bit more and the store brand is a bit less. I could also tell you it is likely to be a bit more in a small, boutique store than a large chain store and cost a bit more in the middle of NYC or SF than it would cost in the outskirts of St. Louis.
In short, I know enough about the cost of milk that if it is priced at $16 a gallon or $1.50 a gallon that it is unusual and, despite not knowing the exact 'normal' cost of a gallon of milk, that I can assume I can walk away and get some somewhere else in the market for a 'normal' price.
I think most people are in my shoes when it comes to milk and I think most employers in tech have a pretty good idea what a normal salary for a position is, especially those who have written checks for those positions for a while.
If you are finding that is not the case, I would wonder why.
Alas, software developers are not an agricultural commodity with a highly transparent and uniform underlying cost structure. :-)
The "10X developer" may be a bit of overhyped mythology, but underneath it is the very real idea that developers vary enormously in their abilities and the amount of value they can add. While the variance in their salaries doesn't capture the variance in their productivity, perhaps, there are many situations where there is profound business sense in paying one developer 2-3x more than another.
The problems are: (1) Everyone thinks they're that 2-3x guy; (2) office politics would sooner or later lead to the news getting out and a profound sense of injustice spreading like a wildfire.
It definitely depends on the sector and situation. If someone told me that a dev that some would offer $80K was making $200K I'd say 'Oh. In the financial sector?'
Otherwise, what I'm talking about is the fat part of the salary curve...there are always going to be interesting situations at the edge.
I've never worked in the financial sector. The truth is that there's just vast differentiation in how companies treat and pay developers. Some companies basically don't recognize the need for quality and pay all their technical folks <$120k across the board.
I think it is less about recognizing the need for quality and more about not needing nor being able to afford those skills.
It's like mechanics: F1 mechanics make a hell of a lot more than your average wrench turner (for good reason). If you need someone to look at your Corolla you don't need that extra skill and you couldn't afford it even if you wanted it.
You're assuming management competence (ie. that they know what they need).
I've seen way too many companies where they have 3 or 4 developers doing work which 1 competent developer could do, but they're unable to hire or retain competent developers due to poor pay. They'd actually save a lot of money by paying better.
The difference is most people are in the market for hood and I see myself as the local brand organic fair trade vanilla soy milk. No one wants to be hood.
It's like buying milk. I couldn't tell you exactly how much I could buy a gallon of milk for right now (without looking it up). But I could tell you that it is for around five or six dollars. I could also tell you that organic milk is a bit more and the store brand is a bit less. I could also tell you it is likely to be a bit more in a small, boutique store than a large chain store and cost a bit more in the middle of NYC or SF than it would cost in the outskirts of St. Louis.
In short, I know enough about the cost of milk that if it is priced at $16 a gallon or $1.50 a gallon that it is unusual and, despite not knowing the exact 'normal' cost of a gallon of milk, that I can assume I can walk away and get some somewhere else in the market for a 'normal' price.
I think most people are in my shoes when it comes to milk and I think most employers in tech have a pretty good idea what a normal salary for a position is, especially those who have written checks for those positions for a while.
If you are finding that is not the case, I would wonder why.